Marinela Mladenova is a Professor of General and Comparative Linguistics and Lecturer in Comparative grammar of Slavic Languages at the South-westn University “Neofit Rilski” in Blagoevgrad (Bulgaria). 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 includes faculty appointments at Comenius University in Bratislava (1998–2002) and the University of Szeged (2007–2010), as well as invited 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), Yerevan State Linguistic University after V. Brusov (Armenia) etc.
Her research interests lie in comparative Slavic linguistics, Slavic Microlanguages, Sociolinguitsic, Lexical dynamics in Contemporary Languages, and Bulgarian as a foreign language.
In recent years, her scholarly work has been devoted primarily to the History, Language, Culture, and Literature of the Banat Bulgarian Catholic community in Romania.
Key words: Microlanguages, Banat Bulgarians, Sociolinguistic, Slavic languages, Contrastive Linguistic.