Laurent Dekydtspotter
- Associate Professor, Second Language Studies and French and Italian
Education
- Ph.D. Linguistics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
- M.A. TESOL/Applied Linguistics Washington State University, Pullman Washington
- B.A. English. Université Catholique de l'Ouest Angers, France
Contact Information
Indiana University
Ballantine Hall 611
Bloomington, IN 47405
(812) 855-2221 ldekydts@indiana.edu
Areas of Research
(Development of) interpretive knowledge: phrasal semantics, lexical semantics and grammatically computed pragmatic inferences. Sentence processing: information integration in L2 processing.
Personal Statement
Professor Dekydtspotter’s primary research foci lie in the degrees to which second language learners can acquire sentence types that are not grammatical in the learner's native language as well as with the precise manner in which second language perceivers in various stages of development go about interpreting sentences of the target language input, with special interest in the integration of information from various domains: context, pragmatics, prosody, semantics and syntax.
The reason for the focus on semantics is that not all ways of combining words together have the same semantic consequences. Aspects of one's semantic intuitions results from the precise way in which one goes about putting the sentence together. In fact, interpretive research developed at IU suggests that L2 learners develop grammars that are in the same range as native systems.
The reason for the second focus on processing is that not all ways of combining information together have the same consequences for language understanding. In a string of experiments, I have investigated the extent to which context can override syntactic information in the manner in which L2 learners perceive sentences. Our research so far found a deep syntactic reflex in second language acquirers of French, at the low intermediate proficiency level and beyond. This threatens the notion that L2 perceivers do not process sentences as deeply as natives, relying on lexical and contexual information instead.
Courses Recently Taught
- French Syntax, French Phonology, French Semantics, Acquisition of French
Publication Highlights
Dekydtspotter, Laurent, Rex A. Sprouse & Audrey Liljestrand (eds.) (2005), Proceedings of Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (GASLA) 7, Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Dekydtspotter, Laurent, Rex A. Sprouse & Thaddeus G. Meyer. (2005) Was für N interrogatives and quantifier scope in English-German interpretation. In Laurent Dekydtspotter, Rex A. Sprouse & Audrey Liljestrand (eds.), Proceedings of Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (GASLA) 7, Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Dekydtspotter, Laurent, Bonnie D. Schwartz, Rex A. Sprouse & Audrey Liljestrand (2005) Evidence for the C-domain in early Interlanguage. In Susan Foster-Cohen Maríadel Pilar Garcia-Mayo and Jasone Cenoz, (eds.), (pp. 7-34) EUROSLA Yearbook 5, John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Dekydtspotter, Laurent and Jon Hathorn (2005) Quelque chose (...) de remarquable in English-French Acquisition: Mandatory, Informationally Encapsulated Computations in Second Language Interpretation. Second Language Research 21: 291-323.
Dekydtspotter, Laurent and Samantha Outcalt (2005) A Syntactic Bias in Scope Ambiguity Resolution in the Processing of English-French Cardinality Interrogatives: Evidence for Informational Encapsulation. Language Learning, 1: 1-37.
