Angela Friederici (born 1952) is a director at the

Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences The Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences is located in Leipzig, Germany. The institute was founded in 2004 by a merger between the former Max Planck Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in Leipzig and the Max Planck Institu ...

in Leipzig, Germany, and is an internationally recognized expert in

cognitive science Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...

neurobiology Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, ...

, and

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

. She is the author of over 400 academic articles and book chapters, and has edited 15 books on linguistics,

neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, ...

, language and

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

Early life and career

Friederici was born in

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

, Germany in 1952. From 1970 to 1976, she studied linguistics at the

University of Bonn The University of Bonn, officially the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (), is a public research university in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the () on 18 October 1818 by Frederick Willi ...

(Germany) and the

University of Lausanne The University of Lausanne (UNIL; ) in Lausanne, Switzerland, was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second-oldest in Switzerland, and one of the oldest universities ...

(Switzerland), graduating with Ph.D. in linguistics in 1976. In 1975, she also began studying

at the University of Bonn and graduated with a degree in psychology (German: Dipl.-Psych.) in 1980. In 1986, she completed her professorial degree (

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

) at the

University of Giessen University of Giessen, official name Justus Liebig University Giessen (), is a large public research university in Giessen, Hesse, Germany. It is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in the German-speaking world. It is named afte ...

. After a post-doctoral scholarship at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

, and work as a research fellow at the

Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics The Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (German: ''Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik''; Dutch: ''Max Planck Instituut voor Psycholinguïstiek'') is a research institute located on the campus of Radboud University Nijmegen in Nijm ...

and the

Paris Descartes University Paris Descartes University (), also known as Paris V, was a French public university located in Paris. It was one of the inheritors of the historic University of Paris, which was split into 13 universities in 1970. Paris Descartes completely merg ...

, Angela Friederici was awarded a professorship in

cognitive psychology Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of human mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, whi ...

by the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period a ...

in 1989. In 1994, she became a Founding Director and Scientific Member of the Max Planck Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in Leipzig, which became the

in 2004. Friederici also holds honorary professorships ( Honorarprofessor) from the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...

(since 1995) for

, the

University of Potsdam The University of Potsdam is a public university in Potsdam, capital of the state of Brandenburg, northeastern Germany. The university is mainly situated across three campuses in the city. Some faculty buildings are part of the New Palace o ...

for

Linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

in the Faculty of

Philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

(since 1997) and for

Medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

at the

Charité The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Charité – Berlin University of Medicine; ) is Europe's List of hospitals by capacity, largest university hospital, affiliated with Humboldt University of Berlin, Humboldt University and the Free ...

Humboldt-University The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humboldt, ...

Berlin (since 2004). Friederici's research centres on how the human brain processes language, examining both first and

second language acquisition Second-language acquisition (SLA), sometimes called second-language learning—otherwise referred to as L2 (language 2) acquisition, is the process of learning a language other than one's native language (L1). SLA research examines how learners ...

and use. She was the first to report the

early left anterior negativity The early left anterior negativity (commonly referred to as ELAN) is an event-related potential in electroencephalography (EEG), or component of brain activity that occurs in response to a certain kind of stimulus. It is characterized by a negativ ...

(ELAN), an

EEG Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The bio signals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in the neoc ...

response to syntactic violations in sentences. Her 2017 book ''Language in our Brain'' was endorsed by

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a ...

, in which she stated her current position on the genetics of language study regarding the

FOXP2 Forkhead box protein P2 (FOXP2) is a protein that, in humans, is encoded by the ''FOXP2'' gene. FOXP2 is a member of the forkhead box family of transcription factors, proteins that Regulation of gene expression, regulate gene expression by DNA- ...

gene. On page 222, Friederici states: "It has been proposed that FOXP2 is a gene that plays a major role in speech and language because the mutation of this gene was identified in a family with speech and language problems., although thery were more speech-related rather than language problems as such. The view, however, has also been challenged for several reasons. One reason is that FOXP2 can also be found in non-human primates, mice, birds, and fish, thus in animals that do not speak."

Awards and honors

*Alfred Krupp Prize for Young Scientists of the

Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation __NOTOC__ The Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation is a major German philanthropic non-profit Foundation under civil law. It was founded by Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach. With his death on 30 July 1967, his entire private fortun ...

1990 * Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation 1997 *

University of Mainz The Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz () is a public research university in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate, Germany. It has been named after the printer Johannes Gutenberg since 1946. it had approximately 32,000 students enrolled in around 100 a ...

endowed professor (Johannes Gutenberg-Stiftungsprofessur) 2010 *Carl Friedrich Gauss-Medal of the Brunswick Scientific Society (2011) *Wilhelm Wundt Medal of the German Society of Psychology (2018) * Order of Merit of the Free State of Saxony (2018) *Elected Honorary Member of the

Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...

(2019) She is a member of the Editorial or Scientific Advisory Boards of: ''

Brain and Cognition ''Brain and Cognition'' is an American scientific journal founded in 1982. It covers the fields of cognitive neuroscience and psychophysiology. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2016 impact factor The impact fac ...

'' (Action Editor), ''Brain and Language'', ''Cognitive Neuroscience'' (Action Editor), ''Cognitive Science Quarterly'', ''Gehirn & Geist'', ''

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience The ''Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering cognitive neuroscience. It aims for a cross-discipline approach, covering research in neuroscience, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, neurobiology, ...

'', ''

Journal of Memory and Language The ''Journal of Memory and Language'' is a Peer review, peer-reviewed interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary academic journal of cognitive science, which focuses primarily on the issues of memory and sentence processing, language comprehension. It ...

'', ''Journal of Psycholinguistic Research'', ''Neurolinguistik'', ''

Physiological Reviews ''Physiological Reviews'' is a journal published quarterly by the American Physiological Society which has been published since 1921. The editor in chief of the journal is Sadis Matalon (University of Alabama at Birmingham). The journal's first ...

'', ''Psychonomic Bulletin & Review'', ''Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics'', ''The Mental Lexicon'', ''

Trends in Cognitive Sciences ''Trends in Cognitive Sciences'' (''TiCS'') is a monthly peer-reviewed review journal published by Cell Press. It is one of 14 journals in the '' Trends'' series. its editor is Lindsey Drayton. ''Journal Citation Reports'' (Thomson Reuters) lists ...

''.

Selected works

* * * * * * * * * *

References

External links

Angela Friederici’s staff page at the Max Planck InstituteVideo on Angela D. Friederici's research (Latest Thinking)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Friederici, Angela 1952 births Living people 21st-century German women scientists 21st-century German linguists German women linguists German women neuroscientists German cognitive neuroscientists German women academics University of Bonn alumni University of Lausanne alumni University of Giessen alumni Academic staff of the Free University of Berlin Academic staff of Paris Descartes University Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize winners Members of Academia Europaea Scientists from Cologne German people of Italian descent German expatriates in Switzerland Recipients of the Order of Merit of the Free State of Saxony Max Planck Institute directors 20th-century German linguists