Maike Rocker , Ph.D. Assistant Professor of German and Applied Linguistics

Education

• PhD in German and Language Science, The Pennsylvania State University (2022)
• Master of Education, Universität Bremen, Germany (2016)
• Bachelor of Arts, Universität Bremen, Germany (2013)

Research

• Morphosyntax
• Sociolinguistics
• Language change and language shift
• German contact-varieties in the Americas

Courses Taught at TTU

Undergraduate

• GERM 1501– A beginning course in German I – online
• GERM 3303 – Conversation and Composition
• GERM 4309 – Business German 

Graduate

• LING 4335 / 5312 – Introduction to Linguistics for Second Language Educators
• LING 6000 - Master's thesis
• LING 7000 - Independent study

Recent Publications

• Rocker, Maike H. (In print). “Language shift came when our people were ready for it: A sociolinguistic history of the East Frisian community in Grundy County, Iowa”. In M. T. Putnam & B. R. Page (Eds.), Contact varieties of German: Studies in honor of William D. Keel. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Pecht, Nantke & Rocker, Maike H. (In print). Developing grammars: new evidence from variable progressive expression in spoken Pennsylvania Dutch and Cité Duits. In Deutsche Sprachminderheiten in der Welt: Korpusstudien zur aktuellen Sprachvariation und Sprachideologie. De Gruyter.
• Lykke, Alexander K. & Rocker, Maike H. (2025). A Comparative Perspective on Language Shift and Language Change: Norwegian and German Heritage Varieties in North America. Languages 10 (10): 256-300. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10100256
• Ni, Tianyi, Rocker, Maike H., & Köhnlein, Björn. (2025). A Metrical Analysis of Ternary Vowel Quantity in East Frisian Low German. Proceedings of the Annual Meetings on Phonology1(1). University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries. https://doi.org/10.7275/amphonology.3047
• Rocker, Maike H. (2024). “Niederdeutsche Sprachinseln in den USA.“ In A. Bieberstedt, D. Brandt, K-H. Ehlers & C. Schmitt (eds.), 100 Jahre Niederdeutsche Philologie. Ausgangspunkte, Entwicklungslinien, aktuelle Herausforderungen. Berlin: Peter Lang. 315-353.
• Rocker, Maike H., Wolf-Farré, Patrick & Franz, Sebastian. (2024). “Sosúa heute – A “post-place community” connected by a shared history.” In W. Keel (ed.), Yearbook of German-American Studies 57, 31–48.
• Wolf-Farré, Patrick & Rocker, Maike H. (2024). „Das „Netzwerk Sosúa“: Zur Entitativität und Vitalität einer deutsch-jüdischen Siedlung in der Dominikanischen Republik.“ In A. Wildfeuer & S. Franz (eds.), Standardisierung und (Re-)Vitalisierung von Minderheitensprachen, Germanistische Linguistik 55 (1). 315–346.