Mike Sharwood Smith

Michael Sharwood Smith (born 1942), Emeritus Professor of Languages at Heriot-Watt University & Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, is a researcher into multilingualism and the acquisition of non-native languages, a branch of developmental linguistics and cognitive science. He is a founding editor of Second Language Research, successor to the Interlanguage Studies Bulletin.

Together with John Truscott of National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan he has developed a new theoretical platform for studying language development and language use called the MOGUL Framework (Modular Growth and Use of Language) which explains language development as a by-product of processing albeit constrained by the modular architecture of the mind. His research interests have included theoretical issues concerning the way in which second languages are represented in the mind and how they interact, language attrition, the role of consciousness in language learning and also applications of linguistics such as the design of pedagogical grammars. He has introduced various concepts and associated terms into the field of second language acquisition research, notably "grammatical consciousness-raising" (Sharwood Smith 1981), "crosslinguistic influence" (Sharwood Smith 1982) and "input enhancement" (Sharwood Smith 1991), the last-mentioned idea focusing on the supposed learning effect of systematically making salient for learners certain specific linguistic features that are present in the language to which they are exposed. In line with the frameworks relevance to the mind in general and not just language, the MOGUL framework was accordingly renamed the Modular Cognition Framework (MCF) in 2018 and its particular applications to language were thenceforth viewed as part of the MOGUL 'Project'. The MCF covers all aspects of cognition (Sharwood Smith 2019). Together with James Pankhurst, he ran the annual LARS (Language Acquisition Research Symposia) meetings in Utrecht between 1983 and 1998, bringing together researchers in first and second language acquisition and also theoretical linguistics. Speakers at the LARS meetings have included leading figures such as Melissa Bowerman, Ray Jackendoff, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Mary-Louise Kean, Brian MacWhinney, Frederick Newmeyer, Steven Pinker and Deirdre Wilson as well as many prominent researchers in second language acquisition.