Monika Schmid

Monika is Professor of Linguistics and Head of Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York. She is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Academy of Social Sciences, and the Academia Europaea.

Monika received her PhD in English Linguistics from the University of Duesseldorf, Germany, in 2000, for a PhD thesis on first language attrition among German-Jewish refugees in the UK and the US. Her thesis was published with John Benjamins Publishing Co. in 2002 under the title First Language Attrition, Use and Maintenance: The case of German Jews in Anglophone countries.

She subsequently held positions as lecturer at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Professor of English Language at the University of Groningen and Professor of Linguistics at the University of Essex.

Her research interests focus on bilingual development and, in particular, on change, deterioration and stability in the native language of migrants who become dominant in the language of the environment (this process is called first language attrition, see also languageattrition.org). Her recent work focusses on the impact of personal factors such as the age at migration and working memory capacities on these processes. Together with Barbara Kopke of the University of Toulouse she has organised a series of conferences and conference panels and edited a number of books and special issues of journals on this topic.

Monika has been the PI on a number of projects funded by the German Science Foundation (DFG) and the Dutch Organisation for Research (NWO). She is currently a Co-I on a research project on Vulnerable Native Grammars (PI Prof. Laura Domínguez, University of Southampton).

Monika's current research projects attempt to provide a perspective on the question of whether there are age-related constraints in the development of first and second languages. She is also interested in the practice of using language analysis to determine the origin of asylum seekers. Together with Prof. Peter L. Patrick of Essex University and Dr. Karin Zwaan of the Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, she convenes the Language and Asylum Research Group (www.essex.ac.uk/larg).