About
Ute Bohnacker is Professor of Linguistics at Uppsala University's Department of Linguistics and Philology and also holds the position of Reader in Scandinavian Languages. She has made significant contributions to the field of linguistics through her research on language acquisition, bilingualism, and narrative analysis, with particular focus on Germanic languages and multilingual child development in the Swedish context.
Her research expertise spans first and second language acquisition, bilingualism, narrative structures, grammar, and discourse, with special interest in Germanic languages. Bohnacker's recent work has expanded into language assessment and impaired populations, examining both typical and atypical multilingual child language development. She has conducted morphosyntactic studies of Icelandic and Swedish child language, investigated word order and discourse pragmatics in adult second and third language learners, and contributed to theory-building in second language research regarding the influence of first and second languages on third language acquisition.
Bohnacker's publication record from 2021-2025 reveals a consistent focus on bilingual language development across multiple language pairs (Turkish-Swedish, Arabic-Swedish, German-Swedish), with particular attention to narrative macrostructure, vocabulary development, and language assessment. Her work demonstrates a clear progression from theoretical linguistics to practical applications in educational and clinical settings, with increasing emphasis on developmental language disorders in bilingual contexts.
She has been actively involved in the European network COST Action IS0804 on multilingualism and language impairment and has led the development of the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN), now used worldwide. Currently, she leads the interdisciplinary BiLI-TAS project (funded by Vetenskapsrådet 2014-2019 and Riksbankens jubileumsfond 2020-) that maps language development in bilingual Turkish-, Arabic-, and German-speaking preschool children and early school-age children in Sweden.
Bohnacker's research group examines language development in both heritage languages and Swedish, identifying typical developmental stages and warning signs for atypical development (language disorder). Her empirical results have direct relevance for theory-building in language acquisition research, language disorders, and speech therapy practice.
