Vanessa Brechbühler, B.A.

Vanessa Brechbühler is a research assistant for Prof. Dr. Simone Pfenninger at the University of Zurich. She holds a B.A. in English Literature and Linguistics and History, which she completed with a thesis on the topic of accent perception and its influence on the job application process entitled “The Effects of Accented Englishes on Hireability: A Comparison of Swiss Residents' Attitudes towards Swiss German-Accented, Serbian-Accented, and RP-Accented English”. Vanessa is currently pursuing her M.A. in Linguistics and a minor in History at the University of Zurich.

Her research interests lie at the intersection of variationist second language acquisition research and applied linguistics. She focuses on sociolinguistic variation within L2 speaker communities, particularly in relation to language learning processes and ADHD, as well as other neurodevelopmental factors. Another focus of her research interests is the development and evaluation of evidence-based didactic approaches
for neurodiverse learners.

In addition, Vanessa works as a private tutor and tutor at UZH and has already supervised the seminar ‘'Introduction to Linguistics’' as well as two ancient history seminars.