Mason Wirtz, Ph.D.
University of Salzburg
Postdoctoral Researcher
Mason A. Wirtz is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Salzburg, Austria. He holds a BA (2015–2019) and MA (2019–2020) in German studies from Bowling Green State University (Ohio, USA) and a PhD (2020–2023) in German linguistics from the University of Salzburg, Austria. He is also a certified German as a second/foreign language instructor in Austria.
His primary research interests include psycholinguistics, variationist sociolinguistics, and second language acquisition in adulthood, especially as it concerns quantitative approaches and statistical methods. His research sheds light on the role of psychosocial, linguistic, and cognitive factors in the acquisition of sociolinguistic variation in L2 learning during (young) adulthood, as well as how socioaffective, experiential, and contextual variables impact on additional language learning by mature adults.
In his free time, Mason enjoys cooking and reading.