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Monika S. Schmid

Professor

Head of Department

Profile

Biography

Monika's main topic of research is the loss or deterioration of native or foreign languages, also called Language Attrition. Please refer to her personal website on this topic at https://languageattrition.org. 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, as Senior Lecturer and Professor of English Language at the University of Groningen and as Professor of Linguistics at the University of Essex (2013-2021). 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). Her recent work focuses 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), the Dutch Organisation for Research (NWO) and the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (ESRC).

Career:

  • Professor of Linguistics, University of Essex (2013-2021)
  • Professor of English Language, English Department, University of Groningen (2010 - 2015)
  • Senior Lecturer in English Language, English Department, University of Groningen (2007 - 2010)
  • Lecturer in English Language, English Department, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2000 - 2007)

Departmental Roles

  • Head of Department

Research

Research

My main area of interest has always been in how languages develop, with a particular focus on the types of development that lead away from, rather than towards, full-fledged or standard proficiency. This developmental trajectory is commonly known as language attrition, and it proceeds from the well-established finding that the two languages co-existing in the mind of a bilingual language user are not independent from each other but in constant interaction, and that this interaction takes place in both directions at all linguistic levels: crosslinguistic transfer and interference is not limited to traffic from the first language (L1) to the second (L2), but also vice versa. 

That notwithstanding, the majority of research focuses on the acquisition of L2 knowledge with the (often implicit) underlying assumption that the L1 is a mature, stable and invariate baseline and that the needs of foreign language learners stop when instruction ceases. 'Development', in any language, is thus tacitly conceived of as a unidirectional process, where proficiency continues to increase until a plateau is reached at which the language user then remains indefinitely. All theoretical approaches to bilingualism to date are focused on providing an explanation for the phenomena which can be witnessed in the language which is being acquired and which becomes increasingly more target-like. This view of the developmental process is based on the underlying, implicit and unquestioned assumption that crosslinguistic interaction and transfer is a one-way street and that, while the L2 is linked to and influenced by the L1, the reverse is not true or not important.

My research proposes that, in order to establish what characteristics of linguistic systems or rules contribute to their learnability and govern the acquisitional process, it is necessary to examine what makes it easy or difficult to maintain them. Investigating processes of back-transfer or deterioration can help shed light on fundamental questions about the human language capacity. Factors such as salience, frequency, complexity etc. have often been invoked in trying to provide accounts of what is hard and what is easy to acquire in L2 acquisition. Extending these predictions to cover the process by which knowledge that has been acquired may deteriorate under disuse or be affected by later-learned knowledge provides an important opportunity for theory-building and validation. In a similar vein, exploring what language-external factors (such as the age at which a language is learned or the frequency with which it is used) impact on this developmental process, and how, can only be understood if development is conceived to be a two-dimensional process.

Our understanding of the human capacity for language and for language learning thus crucially depends on the recognition of language development as a process that encompasses both acquisition and 'loss', both ontogenetically and phylogenetically. In order to fully understand the mechanisms that govern bilingualism, it is just as important to understand how and under what conditions an existing language can be modified when another system is added as it is to investigate acquisitional processes in an L2. However, to date we have a very limited grasp of the language-internal, neurocognitive and also language-external factors which drive language attrition, and many of the current theoretical approaches to bilingual development have never been applied to attrition. Restricting the perspective on bilingual development to what is effectively half the phenomenon limits our understanding of language knowledge, use, development, processing and change as a whole.

Publications

Publications

Below are some of the contributions that have recently been published in the media by myself of based on my work:

      External activity

      External activity

      Making a tangible contribution to public discourse, informing society at large about the findings of our work and its implications, and feeding into policy-making is becoming an increasingly important component of what we do. I have always felt that this is a very worthwhile endeavour, largely because in my research on language attrition, I constantly encounter people who are experiencing this phenomenon but feel that this is something unique which is happening to them at best because they are lazy and sloppy, at worst because they must be suffering from some debilitating neurodegenerative condition.

      Trying to raise awareness of the fact that, on the contrary, language attrition is something that happens to all bilinguals and for which no-one should be blamed, or blame themselves, has therefore been a topic of importance for me, and I have been successful in bringing the topic to public attention through my website as well as through various media appearances. A particularly important part of this work is my engagement with lawyers and practitioners working with refugees, in cases where immigration authorities use the technique known as language analysis for the determination of origin in order to assess how convincing a refugee's account of where they come from is. In many cases, this is done many years after someone left their country of origin, and in this context I have on various occasions been successful in helping lawyer's successfully appeal against rejections of asylum applications. I have also provided expert advice to organisations, most recently the Nursing and Midwifery Council, which has helped them adapt the language requirements for their professional accreditation.

      Making a tangible contribution to public discourse, informing society at large about the findings of our work and its implications, and feeding into policy-making is becoming an increasingly important component of what we do. I have always felt that this is a very worthwhile endeavour, largely because in my research on language attrition, I constantly encounter people who are experiencing this phenomenon but feel that this is something unique which is happening to them at best because they are lazy and sloppy, at worst because they must be suffering from some debilitating neurodegenerative condition.

      Trying to raise awareness of the fact that, on the contrary, language attrition is something that happens to all bilinguals and for which no-one should be blamed, or blame themselves, has therefore been a topic of importance for me, and I have been successful in bringing the topic to public attention through my website as well as through various media appearances. A particularly important part of this work is my engagement with lawyers and practitioners working with refugees, in cases where immigration authorities use the technique known as language analysis for the determination of origin in order to assess how convincing a refugee's account of where they come from is. In many cases, this is done many years after someone left their country of origin, and in this context I have on various occasions been successful in helping lawyer's successfully appeal against rejections of asylum applications. I have also provided expert advice to organisations, most recently the Nursing and Midwifery Council, which has helped them adapt the language requirements for their professional accreditation.

      Contact details

      Monika S. Schmid
      Head of Department
      Department of Language and Linguistic Science
      V/C/011
      Vanbrugh College C Block
      University of York
      Heslington
      York
      YO10 5DD

      monika.schmid@york.ac.uk