Belma Haznedar

Belma Haznedar is a full Professor of Applied Linguistics at Boğaziçi University's Faculty of Education, Department of Foreign Language Education. She holds a Ph.D. from Durham University (1997), an M.A. from Durham University (1992), and a B.A. from Hacettepe University (1989).

• Ph.D. in Linguistics, Durham University, United Kingdom (1997)
• M.A. in Linguistics, Durham University, United Kingdom (1992)
• B.A. in Linguistics, Hacettepe University, Turkey (1989)

Her research focuses on childhood bilingualism with emphasis on simultaneous and sequential language acquisition, literacy development in monolingual and bilingual contexts, and foreign language teaching to young learners. She investigates cognitive and linguistic aspects of reading acquisition, particularly in Turkish orthography, and develops educational resources for teachers working with migrant populations. Her work bridges theoretical linguistics with practical classroom applications, influencing teacher education programs and literacy assessment tools.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals consistent focus on bilingual cognition, literacy development in transparent orthographies, and pedagogical applications for multilingual classrooms. Her work increasingly addresses refugee and migrant education through projects like EU-SPEAK-3, emphasizing heritage language maintenance.

• Co-editor of Current Trends in Child Second Language Acquisition (John Benjamins, 2008)
• Co-editor of Handbook for Teaching Foreign Languages to Young Children in Primary Schools (Anı Publications, 2010)
• Co-editor of Acquisition of Turkish in Childhood (John Benjamins, 2016)
• Editorial Board member of Applied Psycholinguistics (SSCI)

Professor Haznedar has directed numerous TÜBİTAK-funded research projects including "Factors Affecting Reading Acquisition in Turkish" (2015-2018) and COST Action IS1401 European Literacy Network (2015-2019). She has supervised 14 MA/PhD theses on bilingual literacy development and serves on multiple university committees including the Academic Committee and Excuse Committee. Her EU-SPEAK-3 project developed online resources for teaching immigrant adults with low literacy skills.

She leads the "Living Laz Project" documenting endangered Laz language and presented findings at United Nations Headquarters in 2017 regarding educational challenges for migrant populations.