Aslı Özyürek is a

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

cognitive scientist Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...

and

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...

. She is professor at the Center for Language Sciences and the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at

Radboud University Nijmegen Radboud University (abbreviated as RU, , formerly ) is a public university, public research university located in Nijmegen, Netherlands. RU has seven faculties and more than 24,000 students. Established in 1923, Radboud University has consistentl ...

, and Director of the Multimodal Language Department of the

Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics The Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (German: ''Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik''; Dutch: ''Max Planck Instituut voor Psycholinguïstiek'') is a research institute located on the campus of Radboud University Nijmegen in Nijm ...

Biography

Özyürek was born in

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

, and took her BA in psychology at

Boğaziçi University Boğaziçi University (Turkish language, Turkish: ''Boğaziçi Üniversitesi''), also known as Bosphorus University, is a Public university, public research university in Istanbul, Turkey, historically tied to a former American educational insti ...

. She received her joint PhD in linguistics and

developmental psychology Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development ...

from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

in 2000, before moving to

Koç University Koç University () is a private non-profit research university in Istanbul, Turkey. It started education in temporary buildings in İstinye in 1993, and moved to its current Rumelifeneri campus near Sarıyer in 2000. Koç University is ranked hi ...

in Istanbul to take up an assistant professorship in psychology. From 2003 to 2007 she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Donders Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging in

Nijmegen Nijmegen ( , ; Nijmeegs: ) is the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland and the ninth largest of the Netherlands as a whole. Located on the Waal River close to the German border, Nijmegen is one of the oldest cities in the ...

. In 2007 she was appointed associate professor in the Department of Linguistics at Radboud University Nijmegen, and was promoted to full professor in 2010. In 2019, Özyürek was elected Member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

. In 2022 she was appointed Director of the new Multimodal Language Department at the

, where she builds on her previous work at the Radboud University’s Multimodal Language and Cognition Lab.

Research

Özyürek is a

psycholinguist Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind ...

and neurolinguist who approaches the human capacity for language from the perspective of

multimodality Multimodality is the application of multiple literacies within one medium. Multiple literacies or "modes" contribute to an audience's understanding of a composition. Everything from the placement of images to the organization of the content to ...

and

nonverbal communication Nonverbal communication is the transmission of messages or signals through a nonverbal platform such as eye contact (oculesics), body language (kinesics), social distance (proxemics), touch (Haptic communication, haptics), voice (prosody (lingui ...

. She has worked extensively on

gesture A gesture is a form of nonverbal communication or non-vocal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of, or in conjunction with, speech. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or othe ...

and on signed languages, using the methods of

corpus linguistics Corpus linguistics is an empirical method for the study of language by way of a text corpus (plural ''corpora''). Corpora are balanced, often stratified collections of authentic, "real world", text of speech or writing that aim to represent a giv ...

and experimental linguistics among others.

Selected publications

* Kita, Sotaro, and Aslı Özyürek. 2003. What does cross-linguistic variation in semantic coordination of speech and gesture reveal?: Evidence for an interface representation of spatial thinking and speaking. ''Journal of Memory and Language'' 48 (1), 16-32. * Senghas, Ann, Sotaro Kita, and Aslı Özyürek. 2004. Children creating core properties of language: Evidence from an emerging sign language in Nicaragua. ''Science'' 305 (5691), 1779-1782. * Özyürek, Aslı. Roel M. Willems, Sotaro Kita, and Peter Hagoort. 2007. On-line integration of semantic information from speech and gesture: Insights from event-related brain potentials. ''Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience'' 19 (4), 605-616. * Willems, Roel M., Aslı Özyürek, and Peter Hagoort. 2007. When language meets action: The neural integration of gesture and speech. ''Cerebral Cortex'' 17 (10), 2322-2333. * Goldin-Meadow, Susan, Wing Chee So, Aslı Özyürek, and Carolyn Mylander. 2008. The natural order of events: How speakers of different languages represent events nonverbally. ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' 105 (27), 9163-9168. * Kelly, Spencer D., Aslı Özyürek, and Eric Maris. 2010. Two sides of the same coin: Speech and gesture mutually interact to enhance comprehension. ''Psychological Science'' 21 (2), 260-267.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Özyürek, Aslı Linguists from Turkey Women linguists Turkish psychologists Turkish women psychologists Living people Boğaziçi University alumni University of Chicago alumni Academic staff of Radboud University Nijmegen Year of birth missing (living people) Max Planck Institute directors Members of Academia Europaea