List of language acquisition researchers

Below are some notable researchers in

language acquisition Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language (in other words, gain the ability to be aware of language and to understand it), as well as to produce and use words and sentences to ...

listed by intellectual orientation and research topic. Nativists *

Eric Lenneberg Eric Heinz Lenneberg (19 September 1921 – 31 May 1975) was a linguist and neurologist who pioneered ideas on language acquisition and cognitive psychology, particularly in terms of the concept of innateness. Life and career He was born in Dü ...

Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. P ...

* Stephen Crain *

Thomas Bever Thomas G. Bever (born December 9, 1939) is a Regent's Professor of Psychology, Linguistics, Cognitive Science, and Neuroscience at the University of Arizona. He has been a leading figure in psycholinguistics, focusing on the cognitive and neur ...

Susan Gelman Susan A. Gelman (born July 24, 1957) is currently Heinz Werner Distinguished University Professor of psychology and linguistics and the director of the Conceptual Development Laboratory at the University of Michigan. Gelman studies language and ...

Susan Carey Susan E. Carey (born 1942) is an American psychologist who is a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. She studies language acquisition, children's development of concepts, conceptual changes over time, and the importance of executive fun ...

Elizabeth Spelke Elizabeth Shilin Spelke FBA (born May 28, 1949) is an American cognitive psychologist at the Department of Psychology of Harvard University and director of the Laboratory for Developmental Studies. Starting in the 1980s, she carried out experim ...

* Lila R. Gleitman Empiricists *

Elizabeth Bates Elizabeth Ann Bates (July 26, 1947 – December 13, 2003) was a professor of cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego. She was an internationally renowned expert and leading researcher in child language acquisition, psycho ...

Michael Tomasello Michael Tomasello (born January 18, 1950) is an American developmental and comparative psychologist, as well as a linguist. He is professor of psychology at Duke University. Earning many prizes and awards from the end of the 1990s onward, he i ...

Brian MacWhinney Brian James MacWhinney (born August 22, 1945) is a Professor of Psychology and Modern Languages at Carnegie Mellon University. He specializes in first and second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and the neurological bases of language, an ...

* Elissa L. Newport *

Linda B. Smith Linda B. Smith (born 1951) is a professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Indiana University. Smith earned her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1977. Smith is the author (or co-author) of more than 100 publications on cognitive ...

* Jenny Saffran *

Elena Lieven Elena Lieven (born 18 August 1947) is a British psychology and linguistics researcher and educator. She was a Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology in Leipzig, Germany. She is also a professor in ...

Dan Slobin Dan Isaac Slobin (born May 7, 1939) is a Professor Emeritus of psychology and linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. Slobin has made major contributions to the study of children's language acquisition, and his work has demonstr ...

Barbara Landau Dr. Barbara Landau is the Dick and Lydia Todd Professor in the Department of Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins University. Landau specializes in language learning, spatial representation and relationships between these foundational systems of hu ...

Melissa Bowerman Melissa Bowerman (April 3, 1942 – October 31, 2011) was a leading researcher in the area of language acquisition. From 1982-2007, she was a senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. Education and career In 1971 ...

* Adele Goldberg * Richard N. Aslin * Janet Werker * Roger Brown *

LouAnn Gerken LouAnn Gerken (born May 20, 1959) is a Professor of Psychology, Linguistics, and Cognitive Science at the University of Arizona. She is the author of a book on language development and has over 80 published articles and book chapters on the topi ...

Jean Berko Gleason Jean Berko Gleason (born 1931) is a psycholinguist and professor emerita in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Boston University who has made fundamental contributions to the understanding of language acquisition in children ...

Edward Klima Edward S. Klima (June 21, 1931 – September 25, 2008) was an American eminent linguist who specialized in the study of sign languages. Klima's work was heavily influenced by Noam Chomsky's then-revolutionary theory of the biological basi ...

Ursula Bellugi Ursula Bellugi (February 21, 1931 – April 17, 2022) was an American cognitive neuroscientist. She was a Distinguished Professor Emerita and director of the Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. S ...

Gary Marcus Gary F. Marcus (born February 8, 1970) is a professor emeritus of psychology and neural science at New York University. In 2014 he founded Geometric Intelligence, a machine-learning company later acquired by Uber. Marcus's books include ''Guitar ...

* Paul Bloom *

Eve V. Clark Eve Vivienne Clark (born 26 July 1942) is a British-born American linguist. Clark's research focuses on first language acquisition, especially the acquisition of meaning. She has also worked on the acquisition and use of word-formation, including ...

Generative Language Acquisition * Lydia White * Luigi Rizzi *

Nina Hyams Nina Hyams (born 1952) is a distinguished research professor emeritus in linguistics at the University of California in Los Angeles. Education and career Hyams received her PhD in linguistics in 1983 from CUNY, with a dissertation entitled, ''Th ...

Rosemarie Tracy Rosemarie Tracy is a German linguist specializing in language acquisition. She is currently senior professor of English linguistics at the University of Mannheim. Biography Tracy studied English, French and Portuguese at the universities of Mann ...

Second language acquisition researchers *

H. Douglas Brown Henry Douglas Brown (born 1941 in Ngawi) is a professor emeritus of English as a Second Language at Yogyakarta State University State University of Yogyakarta ( id, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, abbreviated as UNY) is a state university es ...

Martin Bygate Martin Bygate (born 1950) is a British linguist. He is currently an honorary professor at the Department of Linguistics and English Language of Lancaster University, United Kingdom. His research focuses on applied linguistics with a special focu ...

John Bissell Carroll John Bissell Carroll (June 5, 1916 – July 1, 2003) was an American psychologist known for his contributions to psychology, linguistics and psychometrics.Stansfield, Charles W. “Carroll, John Bissell.” ''Concise Encyclopedia of Educati ...

Pit Corder Stephen Pit Corder (6 October 1918 – 27 January 1990) was a professor of applied linguistics at Edinburgh University, known for his contribution to the study of error analysis. He was the first Chair of the British Association for Applied Lin ...

Alister Cumming Alister Henry Cumming (born 1953) is a Canadian linguist. He is currently a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. He is most noted for early studies of composing processes in a second language in the 1980s, establishing that writing sk ...

Nick Ellis Nick C. Ellis is a Welsh psycholinguist, professor of psychology, and a research scientist at the English Language Institute of the University of Michigan. As a researcher, Ellis' focus is on applied linguistics with interest in second language ...

Rod Ellis Rod Ellis is a Kenneth W. Mildenberger Prize-winning British linguist. He is currently a research professor in the School of Education, at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. He is also a professor at Anaheim University, where he serves as ...

* Susan Gass * Fred Genesee * Shaofeng Li *

François Grosjean François Grosjean is a Professor Emeritus and former Director of the Language and Speech Processing Laboratory at the University of Neuchâtel ( Switzerland). His specialty is psycholinguistics and his domains of interest are the perception, compr ...

Luke Harding Luke Daniel Harding (born 21 April 1968) is a British journalist who is a foreign correspondent for ''The Guardian''. He was based in Russia for ''The Guardian'' from 2007 until, returning from a stay in the UK on 5 February 2011, he was refus ...

* Keith Johnson *

Judit Kormos Judit Kormos () (born 1970) is a Hungarian-born British linguist. She is a professor and the Director of Studies for the MA TESOL Distance programme at the Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University, United Kingdom. ...

Stephen Krashen Stephen D. Krashen (born May 14, 1941) is an American linguist, educational researcher and activist, who is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Southern California. He moved from the linguistics department to the faculty of the Sc ...

Judith F. Kroll Judith F. Kroll is a Distinguished Professor of Language Science at University of California, Irvine. She specializes in psycholinguistics, focusing on second language acquisition and bilingual language processing. With Randi Martin and Su ...

Alison Mackey Alison Mackey is a linguist who specializes in applied linguistics, second language acquisition and research methodology. She is currently a professor in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University. Her research focuses on applied ling ...

Rosa Manchón Rosa María Manchón Ruiz (born 1957) is a Spanish linguist. She is currently a professor of applied linguistics at the University of Murcia, Spain. Her research focuses on second language acquisition and second language writing. She was the edit ...

* Paul Kei Matsuda *

Lourdes Ortega Lourdes Ortega (born 1962) is a Spanish-born American linguist. She is currently a professor of applied linguistics at Georgetown University. Her research focuses on second language acquisition and second language writing. She is noted for h ...

* Teresa Pica *

Paul Pimsleur Paul Pimsleur (October 17, 1927 – June 22, 1976) was a French-American linguist and scholar in the field of applied linguistics. He developed the Pimsleur language learning system, which, along with his many publications, had a significant e ...

* Richard Schmidt *

Norbert Schmitt Norbert Schmitt (born 23 January 1956) is an American applied linguist and Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. He is known for his work on second-language vocabulary acquisition and ...

Larry Selinker Larry Selinker is professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Michigan and former director of the university's English Language Institute. In 1972, Selinker introduced the concept of ''interlanguage'', which built upon Pit Corder's prev ...

Merrill Swain Merrill Swain is a Canadian applied linguist whose research has focused on second language acquisition (SLA). Some of her most notable contributions to SLA research include the Output Hypothesis and her research related to immersion education. Sw ...

Elaine Tarone Elaine Tarone is a retired professor of applied linguistics and is a distinguished teaching professor emerita at the University of Minnesota. She is currently a member of the editorial board of The Modern Language Journal. Early life Tarone was b ...

* Jyotsna Vaid *

Bill VanPatten Bill VanPatten is a former Professor of Spanish and Second Language Acquisition at Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research universit ...

* Lydia White * Alison Wray *

Michael T. Ullman Michael T. Ullman (born July 29, 1962, San Francisco, California) is an American neuroscientist whose main field of research is the relationship between language, memory and the brain. He is best known for his Declarative/Procedural model of ...

Complex Dynamic Systems Theory Complex Dynamic Systems Theory in the field of linguistics is a perspective and approach to the study of second, third and additional language acquisition. The general term Complex Dynamic Systems Theory was recommended by Kees de Bot to refer to bo ...

approach *

Ali H. Al-Hoorie ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib ( ar, عَلِيّ بْن أَبِي طَالِب; 600 – 661 CE) was the last of four Rightly Guided Caliphs to rule Islam (r. 656 – 661) immediately after the death of Muhammad, and he was the first Shia Imam. ...

Kees de Bot Cornelis Kees de Bot (born 1951) is a Dutch linguist. He is currently the chair of applied linguistics at the University of Groningen, Netherlands, and at the University of Pannonia. He is known for his work on second language development and t ...

Marijn van Dijk Marijn van Dijk (born 6 August 1972) is a Dutch linguist. She is currently an Associate Professor of Developmental psychology at the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences of the University of Groningen, Netherlands. Career van Dijk obta ...

Zoltán Dörnyei Zoltán Dörnyei () (11 March 1960 – 10 June 2022) was a Hungarian-born British linguist. He was a professor of psycholinguistics at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. He was known for his work on second language acqui ...

Paul van Geert Paul van Geert is a Dutch linguist. He is currently a professor of developmental psychology at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. He is renowned for his work on developmental psychology and the application of dynamical systems theory in ...

Phil Hiver Phil may refer to: * Phil (given name), a shortened version of masculine and feminine names * Phill, a given name also spelled "Phil" * Phil, Kentucky, United States * ''Phil'' (film), a 2019 film * -phil-, a lexical fragment, used as a root term ...

Diane Larsen-Freeman Diane Larsen-Freeman (born 1946) is an American linguist. She is currently a Professor Emerita in Education and in Linguistics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. An applied linguist, known for her work in second language acq ...

Wander Lowie Wander Marius Lowie (born 14 October 1959) is a Dutch linguist. He is currently a professor of applied linguistics at the Department of Applied Linguistics at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. He is known for his work on Complex Dynamic ...

Sarah Mercer Sarah Jane Mercer (born 1974) is a British linguist. She is currently the head of the Department of English Language Teaching at the University of Graz, Austria. Her research focuses on applied linguistics, with a special focus on psycholin ...

Marjolijn Verspoor Marjolijn Verspoor (born 1952) is a Dutch linguist. She is a professor of English language and English as a second language at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. She is known for her work on Complex Dynamic Systems Theory and the applicat ...

{{col-end *List of language acquisition researchers *List of language acquisition researchers Language acquisition researchers Language acquisition researchers