Professor of Psychology; English Language Institute Research Scientist
Ph.D. University of Wales
Area: Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental

Contact Information

Email: ncellis@umich.edu
Psychology Office: 500 E. Washington Street, Rm.1011
Psychology Phone: 734-647-0454

Research and Teaching Interests

My research interests include psycholinguistic, cognitive scientific, applied linguistic, corpus linguistic, emergentist and behavioral genetic approaches to second and foreign language acquisition. Current foci include:

• usage-based acquisition, the probabilistic tuning of the language system and its computational modeling;
• the different roles of explicit and implicit language learning and knowledge and the nature of their interface;
• vocabulary, collocation, and formulaic knowledge;
• construction grammar and cognitive linguistics;
• language and brain;
• learned attention and blocking in language acquisition;
• the advanced language learner;
• behavioral genetics of SLA; and
• the applications of psychological theory in language testing and language instruction.

Representative Publications

• Ellis, N. C. (2002). Frequency effects in language acquisition: A review with implications for theories of implicit and explicit language acquisition. (Target article) Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 24, 143-188.
• Ellis, N. C. & Larsen-Freeman, D. (Eds). (2006). Language Emergence: Implications for Applied Linguistics. (Special issue). Applied Linguistics, 27(4).
• Ellis, N. C. (in press, 2008). The dynamics of language use, language change, and first and second language acquisition. Modern Language Journal.
• Robinson, P. and N. Ellis, N.C. (Eds.) (in press, 2008) Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge.

Related Links