Marinela Mladenova is a Professor of General and Comparative Linguistics and Lecturer in Bulgarian at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. She earned her degree in Slavic Philology (Bulgarian and Czech) from Paisii Hilendarski University of Plovdiv and holds a PhD in General and Comparative Linguistics (Contrastive Linguistics) from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”.
Her academic career has included faculty appointments at South-West University “Neofit Rilski,” Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria (1987–2025); Comenius University, Bratislava (1998–2002); and the University of Szeged (2007–2010). She has also delivered lectures at numerous institutions in Europe and beyond, including Masaryk University (Brno, Czech Republic), Ankara University (Turkey), Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (Lublin, Poland), the University of Tirana (Albania), and Yerevan State Linguistic University after V. Brusov (Armenia), among others.
Her research interests include comparative Slavic linguistics, Slavic microlanguages, sociolinguistics, lexical dynamics in contemporary languages, and Bulgarian as a foreign language.
In recent years, her research has focused primarily on the history, language, culture, and literature of the Banat Bulgarian Catholic community in Romania.
Keywords: microlanguages, Banat Bulgarians, sociolinguistics, Slavic languages, contrastive linguistics.