Curriculum Vitae

Academic Employment  [click here  for full CV]

2023-2025
Associate Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kaiserslautern-Landau 

2014-2020
Dekanin Fachbereich Sozialwissenschaften (Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences)  
Elected Member University Senate

since 2012
Professor (W3), University of Kaiserslautern
Psycholinguistics and Language Development Group, Department of Social Sciences

2010-2012   
Professor (W2), University of Kaiserslautern
English Linguistics Group, Department of Social Sciences

2006-2010
Department Chair, Boston University
Department of Literacy & Language, Counseling & Development, School of Education

2002-2010
Associate Professor, Boston University
Department of Literacy & Language, Counseling & Development, School of Education   
Program in Applied Linguistics, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
   
1999-2002
Assistant Professor, Boston University
Department of Developmental Studies and Counseling, School of Education   
Program in Applied Linguistics, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

1994-1998
Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
Language Acquisition Group
Education

1995
Ph.D. in Linguistics, McGill University

1985
B.A. in Hispanic Studies (Great Distinction), McGill University

Research Interests
How do crosslinguistic differences in morphosyntactic structure affect first language development? What aspects of language learning are universal vs. language-specific? How do the two languages of a bilingual or second language speaker interact and influence each other? These questions drive my research program. In work on first language development, I focus especially on the acquisition of morphosyntactic structures in Inuktitut (Eskimo), discourse-pragmatic effects on argument realization in Inuktitut and English, and the acquisition of speech and gesture related to motion events in English, Japanese, and Turkish. In research on bilingual and second language development, I investigate cross-linguistic influence during sentence processing in Inuktitut-English, German-English, Spanish-English, and Basque-Spanish bilinguals. Methods include naturalistic observation, elicited production, self-paced reading, and eye tracking.

Selected Recent Publications  [Click here for full list of publications]

Kapia, E., Allen, S. E. M., & Zogaj, D. (2024). Early vocabulary and grammar development in Albanian-speaking children: An MB-CDI adaptation study. Language Development Research, 4(1), 175-206. http://doi.org/10.34842/wve8-yn80

Kholodova, A., Peter, M., Rowland, C., Jacob, G., & Allen, S. E. M. (2023). Abstract priming and the lexical boost effect across development in a structurally biased language. Languages, 8, 264. doi.org/10.3390/languages8040264

Johnson, A., Elliot, M.E., & Allen, S.E.M. (2023). Morphological simplification in Inuktitut child-directed speech. In M. Huijsmans, D. K. E. Reisinger, & R. Underhill (Eds.), Proceedings of the Workshop on the Structure and Constituency of Languages of the Americas 25 (pp. 103-115). Vancouver, BC: UBCWPL. lingpapers.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2023/04/WSCLA25_Johnson_Elliot_Allen.pdf

Fernandez, L. B., Xheladini, A., & Allen, S. E. M. (2023). Proficient L2 readers do not have a risky reading strategy. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 13(6), 854-872. benjamins.com/catalog/lab.22064.fer

Kholodova, A. & Allen, S.E.M. (2023). The ditransitive alternation in German: Structural preferences and verb bias effects. In E. Zehentner, M. Röthlisberger, & T. Colleman (Eds.), Ditransitives in Germanic languages: Synchronic and diachronic aspects (pp. 264-298). Amsterdam: Benjamins. doi.org/10.1075/sigl.7.08kho

Lee, H., & Allen, S. E. M. (2023). An acquisition sketch of Inuktitut. Language Documentation and Conservation, 28, 135-213. hdl.handle.net/10125/74723

Defina, R., Allen, S. E. M., Davidson, L., Hellwig, B., Kelly, B. F., & Kidd, E. (2023). Sketch acquisition manual (SAM). Part 2: The acquisition sketch. Language Documentation and Conservation, 28, 39-86. hdl.handle.net/10125/74720

Defina, R., Allen, S. E. M., Davidson, L., Hellwig, B., Kelly, B. F., & Kidd, E. (2023). Sketch acquisition manual (SAM). Part 1: The sketch corpus. Language Documentation and Conservation, 28, 5-38. hdl.handle.net/10125/74719

Hellwig, B., Allen, S. E. M. Davidson, L., Defina, R., Kelly, B. F., & Kidd, E. (2023). Introduction: The acquisition sketch project. Language Documentation and Conservation, 28, 1-3. hdl.handle.net/10125/74718

Lee, H., Johnson, O. A., & Allen, S. E. M. (2023). The use of verbal inflections in Inuktitut child-directed speech. Journal of Monolingual and Bilingual Speech, 5(1), 29-58. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmbs.23491

Selected Recent Presentations [Click here for full list of presentations]

Byambasuren, D., & Allen, S. E. M. (2023, October). Measuring mean length of utterance and lexical diversity among Mongolian-speaking rural and urban children. Many Paths to Language, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands.

Zuban, Y., Pashkova, T., Conti, E., Lee, H., Allen, S., Bunk, O., & Zerbian, S. (2023, September). Left dislocation in contact: The case of Russian. Poster at RUEG Conference on Linguistic Variability in Heritage Language Research, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.

Tsehaye, W., Pashkova, T., Lee, H., Conti, E., Allen, S. E. M., Bunk, O., & Tracy, R. (2023, June). Syntax on the edge: The role of register in syntactic variation at sentence peripheries in language contact. 14th International Symposium on Bilingualism, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.

Katsika, K., Allen, S. E. M., Iefremenko, K., & Schroeder, C. (2023, May). Discourse openings and closings in Turkish majority and heritage language speakers: effects of age, register and modality. Poster at Heritage Languages at the Crossroads, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Johnson, O. A. & Allen, S. E. M. (2023, April). MATTR: Measuring lexical diversity in Inuktitut. 26th Workshop on Structure and Constituency in Languages of the Americas, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

Teaching at the University of Kaiserslautern

• Introduction to Linguistics (for Computer Science Masters students)
• Language Development (for Cognitive Science and Computer Science Masters students)
• Linguistics and Language Processing (for Cognitive Science and Computer Science Masters students)
• Scientific Writing and Publishing in English (for doctoral students and postdocs in all disciplines)
• Syntax (for Cognitive Science and Computer Science Masters students)
• Working with Human Subjects (for Cognitive Science students)

Professional Service

• Co-Editor, Trends in Language Acquisition Research (TiLAR) book series, Benjamins Publishing
• Editorial Board Member, Journal of Child Language
• Editorial Board Member, International Journal of Language Studies