Curriculum Vitae

Academic Employment  [click here  for full CV]

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]

• Allen, Jacob, G., Katsika, K., Family, N. & Allen, S.E.M. (2016). The role of constituent order and level of embedding in cross-linguistic structural priming. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. [pdf]
• Mozaffari Chanijani, S. S., Al-Naser, M., Bukhari, S. S., Borth, D., Allen, S. E. M., & Dengel, A. (2016). An eye movement study on scientific papers using wearable eye tracking technology. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Mobile Computing and Ubiquitous Networking. [pdf]
• Serratrice, L. & Allen, S.E.M. (Eds.) (2015). The acquisition of reference. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
• Serratrice, L. & Allen, S.E.M. (2015). Introduction: An overview of the acquisition of reference. In L. Serratrice & S.E.M. Allen (Eds.), The acquisition of reference (pp. 1-24). Amsterdam: Benjamins. [pdf]
• Allen, S.E.M., Hughes, M.E. & Skarabela, B. (2015). The role of cognitive accessibility in children’s referential choice. In L. Serratrice & S.E.M. Allen (Eds.), The acquisition of reference (pp. 123-153). Amsterdam: Benjamins. [pdf]
• Allen, S.E.M. & Dench, K. (2015). Calculating mean length of utterance for Eastern Canadian Inuktitut. First Language, 35, 377-406. [pdf]
• Allen, S.E.M. (2015). Argument structure. In E. Bavin & L. Naigles (Eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Child Language (2nd edition, pp. 271-297). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [pdf]
• Family, N. & Allen, S.E.M. (2015). The development of the causative construction in Persian child language. Journal of Child Language, 42(6), 1337-1378. [pdf]
• Hughes, M. & Allen, S.E.M. (2015). The incremental effect of discourse-pragmatic sensitivity on referential choice in the acquisition of a first language. Lingua, 155, 43-61. [pdf]

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

• Allen, S.E.M., Fernandez, L., Elliot, M., Family, N. & Katsika, K. (2016, September). “L2 processing of complex noun phrases in English”. Conference on Multilingualism, University of Ghent, Ghent, Belgium.
• Family, N., Dovenberg, E., Katsika, K., Fernandez, L. & Allen, S.E.M. (2016, September). The effects of verb bias and plausibility on ambiguity resolution in L2 English: An eye-tracking study of native German speakers. Poster at Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing 2015, University of Bilbao, Spain.
• Allen, S.E.M. & Behrens, H. (2016, July). “Morphosyntactic development.” Summer School on Human Language: From Genes and Brains to Behavior, Berg en Dal, Netherlands.
• Allen, S.E.M. (2016, May). “Discourse-pragmatic cues in child processing from a cross-linguistic perspective.” Keynote talk, Workshop on the Role of Pragmatic Factors in Child Language Processing, Berlin, Germany.
• Katsika, K. & Allen, S.E.M. (2015, November). “The processing of Greek relative clauses in adults and children.” Poster at 40th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, MA.
• Iraola Azpiroz, M., Allen, S.E.M. & Ezeizabarrena, M.-J. (2015, September). “Pronoun resolution preferences in Basque-speaking children and adults: Any traces of convergence?” Poster at Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing 2015, University of Malta, Malta.

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