Rosemarie Tracy is a German

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

specializing in

language acquisition Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language (in other words, gain the ability to be aware of language and to understand it), as well as to produce and use words and sentences to ...

. She is currently senior professor of English linguistics at the

University of Mannheim The University of Mannheim (German: ''Universität Mannheim''), abbreviated UMA, is a public research university in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1967, the university has its origins in the ''Palatine Academy of Sciences'', ...

Biography

Tracy studied English, French and Portuguese at the universities of Mannheim and

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

, as well as

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United St ...

. She received her doctorate at the University of Mannheim for a thesis on child first language acquisition based on longitudinal studies. Subsequently, she taught and researched at the

University of Heidelberg } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...

and the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

, taking a

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

for her work on bilingual child language acquisition. She was appointed professor of English linguistics at Mannheim in 1995. She became senior professor in 2019. In 2022 she was awarded the

Wilhelm von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (, also , ; ; 22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin, which was named after ...

Prize for lifetime achievement by the German Linguistics Society (DGfS).

Research and outreach

Tracy's research revolves around language acquisition and

psycholinguistics Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind ...

, and she has published widely on topics such as code-switching, borrowing, and

language change Language change is variation over time in a language's features. It is studied in several subfields of linguistics: historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and evolutionary linguistics. Traditional theories of historical linguistics identify ...

at the individual level. She has led projects funded by the

German Research Council The German Research Foundation (german: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germ ...

on comparing monolingual and bilingual acquisition and on German as a

heritage language A heritage language is a minority language (either immigrant or indigenous) learned by its speakers at home as children, and difficult to be fully developed because of insufficient input from the social environment. The speakers grow up with a d ...

in the US. She is one of the founders of the

MAZEM – Mannheim Center for Empirical Multilingual Research The MAZEM – Mannheim Center for Empirical Multilingualism Research (in German: ''Mannheimer Zentrum für Empirische Mehrsprachigkeitsforschung'') in Mannheim, Germany is a linguistic and educational research institute that originated at the Uni ...

. She is the author of an influential popular book, ''How children learn languages'' (German: ''Wie Kinder Sprachen lernen''), written for parents of multilingual children, teachers, and early-years educators.

Publications

* Tracy, Rosemarie. 1986. The acquisition of case morphology in German. ''Linguistics'' 24 (1), 47–78. * Fritzenschaft, Agnes, Ira Gawlitzek-Maiwald, Rosemarie Tracy, and Susanne Winkler. 1990. Wege zur komplexen Syntax (Routes to complex syntax). ''Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft'' 9 (1-2), 52–134. * Tracy, Rosemarie. 1991. ''Sprachliche Strukturentwicklung: linguistische und kognitionspsychologische Aspekte einer Theorie des Erstspracherwerbs.'' (The development of structure in language: linguistic and cognitive-psychological aspects of a theory of first language acquisition.) Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. * Gawlitzek-Maiwald, Ira, Rosemarie Tracy, and Agnes Fritzenschaft. 1992. Language Acquisition and Competing Linguistic Representations: The Child as Arbiter. In Jürgen M. Meisel (ed.), ''The Acquisition of Verb Placement: Functional Categories and V2 Phenomena in Language Acquisition'', 139–179. Dordrecht: Kluwer. * Gawlitzek-Maiwald, Ira, and Rosemarie Tracy. 1996. Bilingual bootstrapping. ''Linguistics'' 34 (5), 901–926. * Tracy, Rosemarie. 2008. ''Wie Kinder Sprachen lernen: und wie wir sie dabei unterstützen können'' (How children learn languages and how we can support them). Second edition. Tübingen: Francke Verlag.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tracy, Rosemarie Women linguists Living people Linguists of English Linguists from Germany Developmental psycholinguists University of Mannheim alumni Academic staff of the University of Mannheim Year of birth missing (living people)