• Effects of second language acquisition on structural, linguistic and perceptual processes of narrative discourse in preschool and school-aged children: A longitudinal study

This is the first project to investigate the longitudinal effects of early immersion to English in preschool context on Turkish narrative competence which is one of the best indicators of language competence. Eye-tracking methods are rarely used in narrative competence research. With the aid of this method, it will be possible to understand where children attend in a narrative and its relations with narrative structure and linguistic complexity.

• Effects of second language acquisition on character introductions in 5- and 7-year-old bilingual and monolingual children’s frog story narratives

Related publications: Aktan-Erciyes, A., Ünlütabak, B. & Zengin, B.F. (2021) Effects of second language acquisition on character introductions in 5- and 7-year-old bilingual and monolingual children’s frog story narratives, First Language.

• Effects of L2 proficiency on L1 lexical property evaluations

Altın, E., Okur, N., Yalçın, E., Eraçıkbaş, A., Aktan-Erciyes, A. (in prep) Effects of L2 proficiency on L1 lexical property evaluations of 600 words. 

• Effects of L2 on causal structures in L1 frog story narratives in children 

Doğan, A., Lale, E., Aktan-Erciyes, A. (in prep) Effects of L2 on casual structures in L1 frog story narratives in children.

• Left to right or right to left? Effect of writing direction on time perception in bilingual adults.

The project aims to investigate the relationship between writing direction and time perception through second language acquisition. This project will focus on how a second language written in a different direction affects this spatial representation of time.

• Verbal and Gestural Differences of Child-Directed and Adult-Directed Speech 

The aim of the current study is to investigate how speech and gestures will differ towards an invisible adult or child addressee. The first purpose of the study is to show how ADS and CDS differ in terms of linguistic complexity. Another aim of the research is to determine the gesture types used in ADS and CDS.

• Effects of L2-English on L1-Turkish and L2-English Emotion-Memory Interaction

The aim of the study is to determine whether memory recall for emotionally charged words in a controlled set of stimuli taking L2 proficiency into consideration has the same intensity as the first language.