Laurent Dekydtspotter serves as Professor and Chair of Second Language Studies at Indiana University Bloomington's College of Arts and Sciences, with additional appointments in French and Italian, Linguistics, and Germanic Studies. His leadership spans departmental administration and cross-disciplinary research initiatives focused on neural mechanisms in language acquisition. His academic foundation includes a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Cornell University (1995), an M.A. in TESOL/Linguistics from Washington State University (1989), and English degrees from Université Catholique de l'Ouest (M.A. 1987, B.A. 1985). Dekydtspotter's research pioneers the development of interpretive knowledge in L2 learners, examining how phrasal semantics, lexical semantics, and pragmatic inferences interact during sentence processing. His groundbreaking work demonstrates that second language learners engage in deep structural processing —contradicting theories of superficial lexical/contextual reliance—through meticulous experiments on context-syntactic integration in French acquisition. Current investigations leverage gamma oscillation analysis to map neural operational workspaces for syntax across L1/L2 processing. Analysis of his 15 most recent publications reveals an evolutionary trajectory from syntactic processing studies toward integrated neurolinguistic frameworks, consistently emphasizing a unified epistemology for native and nonnative language comprehension. This progression highlights methodological sophistication through time-frequency analyses of wh-movement, anaphora resolution, and agreement phenomena. His scholarly recognition includes: Teaching Excellence Recognition Award (TERA), 1999 Dekydtspotter actively mentors graduate researchers through co-authored publications while securing research support for his neurocognitive investigations. His teaching portfolio spans advanced French syntax, semantics, and pedagogy courses including Introduction to French Semantics and Topics in French Acquisition. Departmental leadership as Chair positions him at the forefront of shaping second language studies curricula and research directions. Through the Early African Cinemas Lab and cross-departmental collaborations, he contributes to IU's linguistic research ecosystem while advancing theoretical models of language faculty development through parsing-to-learn acquisition frameworks.











