Perfil

Jürgen Schmidt-Radefeldt, born in 1939 in Stettin (Pomerania), fled with his family to Lübeck, where he attended elementary school and high school, graduating from the Johanneum in 1959. He studied Romance languages and literatures, Germanic languages and philosophy at the universities of Hamburg, Montpellier and Kiel. He obtained his Ph.D with his thesis Paul Valéry linguiste dans les Cahiers (1965, published in book form, Paris, Klincksieck 1970).

Schmidt-Radefeldt then went to the University of Lisbon for three years (1967-1970) as a Reader-Professor in German (DAAD). He gained the friendship of professors Luís Filipe Lindley Cintra (1925-1991), especially José G. Herculano de Carvalho (1924-2001); with the latter he published the Coleção Linguística, Coimbra Editora (5 vols); alternately, Schmidt-Radefeldt dedicated him a Homenagem (Tübingen 1993) with 30 contributions from internationally recognized linguists.

After a short period as an assistant, Schmidt-Radefeldt taught French didactics at PH and Romance Studies at the University of Kiel and qualified (venia legendi) in Romance philology with a paper on Aspectos de uma teoria do diálogo de pergunta/resposta (com exemplos do Francês, Português e Alemão) (1977). After the political change, Schmidt-Radefeldt became a founding professor of Romance Studies at the University of Rostock (1992-2003). For a year, he was vice-president of the Lusitanian Association. His academic teaching focused on French and Portuguese linguistics.

Schmidt-Radefeldt was an active member of several doctoral programs at universities in Portugal: Dr. António C. Franco, Porto (Modal particles in Portuguese and German), Dr. Isabel Maria Galhano Rodrigues, Porto (O corpo e a fala. Verbal and non-verbal communication in face-to-face interaction, FCG 2007).

In this last phase of his academic activity, Schmidt-Radefeldt organized several colloquia and congresses on Portuguese linguistics, for example at the University of Hamburg (in which Prof. Malaca Casteleiro from the Lisbon Academy of Sciences actively participated), as well as at the University of Rostock (Jornadas Lusitanistas with 85 conferences by German and Lusophone academics).