Rosemarie Tracy is a German

linguist 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 ...

specializing in

language acquisition Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language. In other words, it is how human beings gain the ability to be aware of language, to understand it, and to produce and use words and s ...

. 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 university, public research university in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1967, the university has its origins in the ''Palatine Aca ...

Biography

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

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) 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. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

, as well as

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh language, Welsh: ) is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as a ...

. She received her doctorate at the University of Mannheim in 1991 for a thesis on child first language acquisition based on longitudinal studies (published as Tracy 1991). Subsequently, she taught and researched at the

University of Heidelberg Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public university, public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is List ...

and the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

, taking a

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 ...

for her work on bilingual child language acquisition. She was appointed professor of English linguistics at Mannheim in 1995. After her retirement in 2019, she was appointed Senior Professor by the University of Mannheim.

Honors

A special issue of ''Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft'' in her honor was published in 2017. In 2022 she was awarded the

Wilhelm von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a German philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1949, the university was named aft ...

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 In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. These alternations are generally intended to ...

, borrowing, and

language change Language change is the process of alteration in the features of a single language, or of languages in general, over time. It is studied in several subfields of linguistics: historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and evolutionary linguistic ...

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

German Research Council The German Research Foundation ( ; 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 Germany. In 2019, the DFG had a funding bud ...

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 ...

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

MAZEM – Mannheim Center for Empirical Multilingual Research 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'', ...

. 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 German 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)