Young scientist from Trier receives the highly endowed Sofja Kovalevskaja Prize

Dr Natalia Filatkina from the University of Trier is one of the 13 excellent, international young researchers who have been awarded the Sofja Kovalevskaja Prize by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AHS). The prize money enables Dr. Filatkina to research for four years under unique conditions and to set up its own research group with young colleagues in Trier. The AHS Sofja Kovalevskaja Prize is financed by the Federal Ministry for Research and Education and is currently one of the most valuable science prizes in Germany.

Natalia Filatkina is the only humanities scholar among the 13 award-winning young researchers. Since October 1st, 2003 Natalia Filatkina has been working as a research assistant in the Department of Older German Philology at the University of Trier and is working on the projects of Prof. Dr. Claudine Moulin (Professor of Historical Linguistics). From here she applied for the 2006 Sofja Kovalevskaja Prize of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation with the project "Formula-based language and traditions of formulation".

About the research project

In the age of the information and knowledge society, this research project covers a piece of cultural history from the 8th to the 17th century. It deals with a cross-epoch investigation of the historical phraseology 'word connections' of German in their socio-cultural diversity and dynamics. Within historical linguistics, this project, which is carried out in cooperation with national and international partners, helps shape and opens up new research directions. Research into the history of German phraseology is thus placed on a completely new basis. Comparable, broad-based studies on the formulaic nature of other languages ​​have not yet been made. Modern information technologies are combined with empirical linguistic interpretation. For this purpose, the digitization methods developed in the Trier competence center for electronic cataloging and publication processes in the humanities as well as the mathematical-statistical co-occurrence analysis designed at the Institute for German Language in Mannheim are used.

Natalia Filatkina's project sees itself as a contribution to historical cultural studies and is dependent on cooperation with other historical disciplines, such as the Historical and Cultural Studies Research Center Mainz-Trier (HKFZ) under the direction of Prof. Dr. Claudine Moulin / Trier and Dr. Mechthild Dreyer / Mainz. The HKFZ was set up in autumn 2005 as part of the Rhineland-Palatinate initiative Knowledge Creates Future. In cooperation with national and international partners in historical linguistics, research into the history of German phraseology is placed on a completely new basis.

The vita of the award winner

Natalia Filatkina was born on August 18, 1975 in Moscow, she is married and has a one-year-old son. The scientist studied German, English, pedagogy and intercultural communication in Moscow, Berlin (Humboldt University) and Bamberg and came to Germany on a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (1994/96). She taught German as a Foreign Language at the Moscow State Linguistic University (1996/99) and between 1999 and 2002 was a doctoral scholarship holder from the Luxembourg Ministry of Culture and Research. The laureate did her doctorate in 2003 at the Otto Friedrich University in Bamberg with Prof. Dr. Claudine Moulin on the subject of "Phraseology of Lëtzebuergeschen. Empirical investigations into structural, semantic-pragmatic and figurative aspects". This dissertation was awarded the Prix d'encouragement for young researchers from the Université du Luxembourg in 2002. Dr. Filatkina has published various publications on phraseology in Luxembourgish as well as on cultural-historical and methodological problems in phraseology research. In addition to German, Russian and Luxembourgish, she also speaks fluent English and French.

About the Humboldt Foundation

Every year the Humboldt Foundation enables over 1,800 researchers from all over the world to spend time researching in Germany. The foundation maintains a network of around 22,000 Humboldtians from all disciplines in 130 countries worldwide - including 40 Nobel Prize winners.

Conact persons:

Dr. Natalia Filatkina

Universität Trier

Fachbereich II / Germanistik

Ältere deutsche Philologie

filatkin [at] uni-trier.de (filatkin[at]uni-trier[dot]de)

Tel.: +49 651 201 2322

Prof. Dr. Claudine Moulin

Universität Trier

Fachbereich II / Germanistik

Ältere deutsche Philologie

moulin [at] uni-trier.de (moulin[at]uni-trier[dot]de)

Tel.: +49 651 201 2305