Cecilia Gunnarsson

Cecilia Gunnarsson is an Associate Professor in Language Sciences at the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès, affiliated with the NeuroPsychoLinguistics Laboratory (LNPL) and the Department of French as a Foreign Language Studies (DEFLE). She holds leadership roles as Axis 2 Manager in URI Octogone Lordat, Head of the Master's in French and Francophone Studies (DEFLE), and Co-Director of the Master's in Teaching Abroad (ESPE). Her academic work bridges research and pedagogy in second language acquisition, particularly in L2 French writing.

Her research focuses on the cognitive and linguistic aspects of written production in both L1 and L2 French, with emphasis on fluency, complexity, and accuracy (FCA), working memory, and the oral/written interface—especially liaison and instance retrieval. She investigates how L2 learners develop writing automatization and how cognitive and emotional factors influence orthographic production. Her recent work uses experimental paradigms, such as dual-task methodologies, to differentiate controlled from automated writing processes.

The analysis of her publications reveals a strong trajectory in psycholinguistics and applied linguistics, with a consistent focus on empirical and corpus-based methods. Her work spans developmental, cognitive, and educational dimensions of writing, with increasing interest in digital communication (e.g., instant messaging) and its impact on spelling. She frequently collaborates with researchers in neurolinguistics and cognitive psychology.

• Member, Scientific Committee, International Conference Les troubles du langage écrite : de l’enfance à l’âge adulte, 2012
• Member and Organizer, Phonlex 2010: Liaison and other sandhi phenomena
• Organizer, Conscila Workshop, ENS Paris, 2010: Multidisciplinary analysis of a student writing corpus

She has supervised doctoral research, including a thesis on metacognitive strategies in vocabulary learning, and has co-edited several academic volumes. Her participation in national and international research networks—including ANR PHONLEX, GDR-CNRS APPVE, and GIS ReAL2—demonstrates her active role in the academic community. She also contributes to research valorization through conference organization and editorial work.