Marit Kristine Westergaard

Marit Westergaard is a Professor of English Linguistics at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, affiliated with the Department of Language and Culture. She holds a dual role as Secretary General of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and leads research at the Center for Language, Brain & Learning (C-LaBL), a Trond Mohn Foundation-funded initiative focusing on multilingualism and language acquisition. Her work spans first, second/third, and bilingual language acquisition, with specializations in syntax, grammatical gender, and heritage languages.

Research Interests include: syntax (word order, possessive constructions), language attrition, and diachronic change, particularly in Norwegian dialects. She explores multilingualism through projects like AcqVA (Acquisition, Variation & Attrition) and MiMS (Microvariation in Multilingual Acquisition & Attrition Situations).

Her recent work emphasizes cross-linguistic influence (CLI) in L3 acquisition, using experimental methods (eye-tracking, behavioral studies). Key contributions include the 'Linguistic Proximity Model' and 'Micro-cue Model', explaining how multilingual grammars interact. Active in labs like PoLaR (Psycholinguistics of Language Representation) and AcqVA Aurora, she also runs public-facing initiatives like Flere språk til flere.

Grant involvement includes the RCN-funded MuMiN (Multilingual Minds) and international collaborations (EEA Norway grants, MSCA projects). Her 2025 publications address CLI in artificial languages, gender loss in Oslo dialects, and trilingual processing in children. Ongoing projects investigate structural similarity effects and heritage language attrition.