John Robert Schmitz, professor at the Institute of Language Studies (IEL) at Unicamp, passed away yesterday (27) in São Paulo, aged 81. He was married to Maria Lucia de Oliveira Schmitz and leaves four children. The wake will take place today (28) from 20 pm to midnight at the Gethsêmani Cemetery, in SP, and will resume tomorrow (29), at 9 am. The burial will be tomorrow, at 11 am, in the same cemetery (located at Praça da Ressurreição, 1, in Morumbi).
Born in Manhattan, New York, John came to Brazil in the 1960s to study the writer Euclides da Cunha and ended up settling in the country. The professor belonged to the Department of Applied Linguistics at Unicamp. His experience was in the area of Linguistics, with an emphasis on Linguistic Theory and Analysis (foreignisms, lexicography, Portuguese language, passive voice and lexicology).
He graduated in Literature from Brooklyn College Of The City University Of New York (1957). He received a master's degree in Literature and Linguistics from Columbia University (1961) and a doctorate in Literature and Linguistics from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (1975). She participated in a postdoctoral fellowship at the State University Of New York At Oswego, SUNY/OSWEGO, United States.
He directed IEL in the 1990s. He published 94 scientific articles. He was the author of Dictionary of Eponyms and Toponyms of the Portuguese Language in 2014. With Almeida Filho, he published the Glossary of Applied Linguistics: English-Portuguese/Portuguese-Englishs in 1998, published by Pontes. He also published 21 book chapters. He contributed to media coverage through reviews and interviews, including addressing pasteurized language, the dynamics of spoken Portuguese and what dictionaries are for, among others. Read an interview with John in the newspaper Folha de São Paulo.
