

The general assembly of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association has done me the singular honor of electing me as president of the association for a term of two years. I hope to use this opportunity, among other things, to initiate more lively debates between Cognitive Linguistics and other frameworks.
I have been invited to give a plenary talk at the 8th international conference on Practical Applications in Language and Computers, held, as always, in the beautiful Polish city of Łódź. I am looking forward to a stimulating exchange of cutting-edge ideas on the use of corpora and corpus tools in exploring and advancing our understanding of language and linguistic theory and practice.
I am honored to announce that the Board of the Interdisziplinäres Zentrums für Lexikografie, Valenz- und Kollokationsforschung at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg has invited me to join the center as an external member.
I have accepted a position as Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Hamburg starting August 1st, 2010. I am looking forward to working with my new colleagues in the Department of Language Literature and Media in Germany's Tor zur Welt and I thank my old colleagues in Bremen for eight exciting years.