Ted (T.J.M.) Sanders is Professor of Dutch language use and discourse studies at the Department of Languages, Literature and Communication at the Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Since June 1, 2024, he is Vicerector of research at the UU. From 2022-2024 he was Vice Dean of Research and Impact in the Faculty Board of Humanities. Before that (2016-2022), he was Vice Dean of Graduate Education and Dean of the Graduate School of Humanities, and the first head of the Department Languages, Literature and Communication (TLC, 2012-2016). From 2005 to 2011, he led an NWO-VICI project about causality and subjectivity in discourse and cognition. 

Vice Rector of Research

Together with the Vice Rector of Teaching & Learning (Manon Kluijtmans), the Vice Rector of Research represents Utrecht University and its interests in international networks - especially in the context of LERU and the Coimbra Group. In addition to international representation and advocacy, as Vice Rector, Sanders will also be responsible for some key research strategy and policy issues:

• The development of young researchers

  PhD students and postdocs are crucial groups within the universiy community and are vital to the future and innovation of research and education. Utrecht University wants to be of great significance for the professional development of all these young researchers. PhD-policy is mainly developed in the context of the Doctoral Advisory Board (DAB, formerly Graduate Committee) chaired by the Vice Rector of Research, in which all colleagues responsible for PhD-candidates in the Utrecht Graduate Schools meet.

• Research Quality Assurance

  Utrecht University encourages interdisciplinary collaboration, Team Science, Recognition & Rewards and Open Science. These developments have major implications for the operationalization of research quality. The Vice Rector of Research is an important linking pin in the policy-making and advice in this area.

Previously, Sanders led the Master’s evaluation within Humanities and, together with colleagues from Humanities and Medicine, initiated the Msc program: Medical Humanities: Geneeskundige en Geesteswetenschappelijke perspectieven op gezondheid. 

Research areas

In his research, which is embedded in the program of the Institute for Language Sciences (ILS), he focuses on coherence in text, discourse, and cognition. He uses various research methods, at the interface of linguistics and social sciences: theory, corpus analysis, text analysis, questionnaires, and experimental research on reading processes (reaction times and eye-tracking) and text comprehension. Together with colleagues, he developed CCR, a cognitive approach to coherence relations (read more about this on the research page).

In addition, together with colleagues, he investigates readability and comprehensibility: which factors determine the comprehensibility of a text? For this purpose, he co-initiated and led the national research program Comprehensible Language and Effective Communication, funded by NWO and various societal partners (2011-2016). He has also done consulting work and contract research in this field. 

Together with co-authors, he has published on these issues in several edited books and international journals, such as Cognitive Linguistics, Discourse Processes, Dialogue & Discourse, Journal of Child language, Journal of Pragmatics, Language and Cognitive processes, Language Testing, Metacognition and Learning, Reading and Writing, Text & Talk, Written Communication, and in Dutch journals such as Didactief, Gramma/TTT, Nederlandse Taalkunde, Tijdschrift voor Taalbeheersing, Tekstblad, Levende Talen, and Onze Taal. 

He was also (co-)editor of special issues of Cognitive Linguistics (2001), Discourse Processes (2004), and Journal of Pragmatics (2011). Together with Joost Schilperoord and Wilbert Spooren, he edited the book Text Representation: Linguistic and psycholinguistic approaches (Benjamins, 2001). He was also editor of Causal Categories in Discourse and Cognition (Mouton de Gruyter, 2009), together with Eve Sweetser (UC Berkeley).