Assistant Professor
dsafak@bilkent.edu.tr
+90 312 290 2910
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Biography:
Dr. Duygu F. Şafak is Assistant Professor in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) at Bilkent University. Her research lies at the intersection of psycholinguistics and second language acquisition, with a particular focus on language processing, sentence comprehension, and prediction-based learning mechanisms in second language and heritage language speakers.
She received her BA in Foreign Language Education, with a minor in German, from Middle East Technical University (METU). Following her undergraduate studies, she participated in the Teaching Excellence and Achievement (TEA) programme at the University of Arkansas, supported by the U.S. Department of State, and worked as a Comenius Language Assistant in Germany. She subsequently completed her MA in English Language Teaching at METU before continuing her doctoral training in linguistics. In 2016, she moved to Germany and completed her PhD in Linguistics at the Technical University of Braunschweig (TU Braunschweig).
Dr. Şafak began her academic career as a research and teaching assistant at METU, contributing to research projects in psycholinguistics alongside her teaching activities. She later joined TU Braunschweig as a lecturer and subsequently served as a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer (2022–2026), where she was part of the German Research Foundation (DFG)-funded research unit Structuring the Input in Language Processing, Acquisition and Change (SILPAC). In 2026, she returned to Türkiye to join Bilkent University.
Her research examines how multilingual speakers process, adapt to, and learn grammatical structures in real time. Her work has appeared in leading journals including Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, and Second Language Research. Her research has received recognition through competitive international awards and travel grants. She also contributes to the field through peer review for international journals in psycholinguistics and second language acquisition, as well as through conference and editorial service.
Education:
PhD in Linguistics, Technische Universität Braunschweig (TU Braunschweig), Germany, 2022
MA in English Language Teaching, Middle East Technical University, Türkiye, 2015
BA in Foreign Language Education (Minor in German), Middle East Technical University, Türkiye, 2011
Research Interests:
Psycholinguistics; first and second language processing; predictive sentence comprehension; second language acquisition and multilingualism
Selected Publications and Presentations:
Selected Publications
Şafak, D. F., & Hopp, H. (2025). Learning L2 grammar from prediction errors? Verb biases in structural priming in comprehension and production. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 28(5), 1249–1265. DOI: 10.1017/S1366728925000033
Şafak, D. F., & Hopp, H. (2023). Cross-linguistic differences in predicting L2 sentence structure: The use of categorical and gradient verb constraints. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 45(5), 1234–1260. DOI: 10.1017/S0272263123000256
Şafak, D. F. (2022). How do L2 learners use verbs in sentence processing? Integration and prediction in L2 sentence comprehension [Doctoral dissertation, Technische Universität
Braunschweig]. Universitätsbibliothek Braunschweig. DOI: 10.24355/dbbs.084-202209051029-0
Şafak, D. F., & Hopp, H. (2022). Verb bias and semantic persistence effects in L2 ambiguity resolution. Second Language Research, 38(4), 705–736. DOI: 10.1177/0267658321997904
Jacob, G., Şafak, D. F., Demir, O., & Kırkıcı, B. (2019). Preserved morphological processing in heritage speakers: A masked priming study on Turkish. Second Language Research, 35(2), 173–194. DOI: 10.1177/0267658318764535
Lago, S., Gračanin Yüksek, M., Şafak, D. F., Demir, O., Kırkıcı, B., & Felser, C. (2019). Straight from the horse’s mouth: agreement attraction effects with Turkish possessors. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 9(3), 398–426. DOI: 10.1075/lab.17019.lag
Gračanin Yüksek, M., Lago, S., Şafak, D. F., Demir, O., & Kırkıcı, B. (2017). The interaction of contextual and syntactic information in the processing of Turkish anaphors. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 46(6), 1397–1425. DOI: 10.1007/s10936-017-9502-2
Selected Conference Presentations
Şafak, D. F., & Baroncini, I. (2025). Bidirectional priming across languages in adult heritage language speakers. Poster presented at the 15th International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB), Donostia–San Sebastián, Spain, June 09–13.
Şafak, D. F., & Hopp, H. (2024). Prediction-error-based learning in L2 sentence processing. Poster presented at the 30th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP), Edinburgh, Scotland, September 05–07.
Şafak, D. F., & Hopp, H. (2023). Processing to Learn? Effects of prediction error in L2 structural priming. Talk presented at the 48th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD), Boston, MA, US, November 02–05.
Şafak, D. F., & Hopp, H. (2019). The (non)interaction of lexical and discourse information in L2 sentence processing. Talk presented at EuroSLA 29, Lund, Sweden, August 28–31.
Jacob, G.,Şafak, D. F., Demir, O., & Kırkıcı, B. (2017). Preserved morphological processing
in heritage speakers: Evidence from a masked priming study on Turkish. Talk presented at Conference on Multilingualism (COM2017), Groningen, Netherlands, November 06–08.
Lago, S., Gračanin Yüksek, M., Şafak, D. F., Demir, O., & Kırkıcı, B. (2017). Contextual and syntactic information jointly affect the processing of Turkish anaphors. Poster presented at the 30th CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, MIT, Cambridge MA, March 30–April 01.
Şafak, D. F., Gacan Ertuğrul, P., & Kırkıcı, B. (2016). The processing of derived words in L2 English: further evidence for the effect of orthography. Talk presented at International Symposium on Bilingual Processing in Adults and Children (ISBPAC), Kaiserslautern, Germany, April 14–15.
Selected Projects:
Priming Across Languages in Heritage Language Speakers
Postdoc Research Project, University of Mannheim – Co-Principal Investigator (with Dr. Ioli Baroncini), 2025–present.
Structuring the Input in Language Processing, Acquisition and Change (SILPAC)
German Research Foundation (DFG) Research Unit – Postdoctoral Researcher (PI: Prof. Dr. Holger Hopp), 2022–2026.
Experimental Studies on German-Turkish Multilingualism
TÜBİTAK–BMBF Collaborative Project – Researcher (PIs: Prof. Dr. Bilal Kırkıcı and Prof. Dr. Harald Clahsen), 2014–2017.