Team Members:
Nassiba Bouzardaoui
I am a student and research assistant for Prof. Bongartz. I am interested in multilingualism and sociolinguistics. Coming from a multilingual and multicultural background plus living in a time where language diversity is higher than ever, I have never thought of languages as separate systems. Sometimes, I find it difficult to translate a term without losing its meaning. In multilingual societies meaning can be transferred by switching between languages and being able to address the thoughts better.
In my work with Prof. Bongartz I explore the value of languages in multilingual societies such as in the high Atlas Mountain. My focus lies on acknowledging language as an extended tool that provides us with a better understanding of the world and its society. At the moment, Prof. Bongartz and I are working on our publication on Ait Ben Haddou and multilingual language learning.
Email: nbouzar1@uni-koeln.de
Tom Woudstra
I am in the teachers education program (English, Dutch and Social Sciences). As a person who himself grew up in a bilingual family, I am very interested in bilingualism, bilingual school settings and encouraging multilingual learning surroundings. Since my school time I participate in language projects for refugees and try to actively improve their language repertoire.
Email: twoudst1@uni-koeln.de
Vasileia Skrimpa
I am a doctoral candidate in the SFB Project 1252 “Prominence in Language” in the project "C03 - Referenzstrategien in bilingualen Geschichten" and a research assistant at the chair for English Studies and Multilingualism for Prof. Bongartz. I participate as a researcher in the project “Corpus compilation and educational approaches in multilingual settings of Germany and Greece”, an international research project that explores language teaching approaches in multilingual environments and creates a network cluster between participating institutions of higher education in order to facilitate bilingualism and biliteracy. I hold a Master's degree in "Neurolinguistics" from the University of Cologne and a Master's degree in "Higher Education Research and Development" from the University of Kassel, after graduating from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki with a B.A. in "Greek Philology". My research interests include neurolinguistics, bilingualism and biliteracy, neurodegenerative and language disorders, neurocognitive mechanisms in atypical populations, Theory of Mind and cognition, syntax and anaphora resolution.
Email: vskrimp1@uni-koeln.de
Kathrin Brandt
I am a postdoctoral researcher with the faculty of Arts and Humanities’ language lab as well as Prof. Bongartz’s chair for English studies and Multilingualism. While completing my teaching degree I discovered my love for linguistics and proceeded to pursue a PhD in English linguistics at UoC. My primary research interest is in language contact, including the related fields of bi- and multilingualism, sociolinguistics, contact languages and language endangerment with a focus on morphological and syntactic structure. I am further interested in psycholinguistics, language acquisition and cognitive linguistics. My doctoral dissertation investigated question formation in Louisiana Creole, a critically endangered French-lexifier creole language spoken in Southern Louisiana, USA, and the observable sociolinguistic and structural effects of language endangerment.
Email: kklein8@uni-koeln.de
Friederike Zahn
I joined the chair of English Studies and Multilingualism as a part-time research assistant in 2023. In my PhD project, I investigate language contact induced phenomena amongst immigrant communities in Australia. Informed by psycholinguistic data, I argue for a more inclusive model of bi- and multilingual language processing. I hold a BA in German and English Philology from the University of Münster and obtained my MA in Applied Linguistics from the University of Bonn in 2020. I am also one of the coordinators of the faculty’s language lab and a research assistant for the online master program “Australian Studies Online“. My main research interests include Language Contact, Psycholinguistics, and Bi-and Multilingualism.
Email: fzahn1@uni-koeln.de
Associates:
Prof. Dr. Jacopo Torregrossa - Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
https://www.uni-frankfurt.de/57191097/greco
Prof. Dr. Theo Marinis - Universität Konstanz
https://www.ling.uni-konstanz.de/marinis/team/theo-marinis/
Prof. Dr. Maria Andreou - University of Peloponnese
PD Dr. Volker Struckmeier: volker.struckmeier@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
Dr. Eva Knopp (now Radboud University in Nijmegen): eva.knopp@ru.nl
Dr. Manuela Vida-Mannl (now at TU-Dortmund): manuela.vidamannl@tu-dortmund.de