Dr Dora Alexopoulou

海角社区

Position(s):

Associate Professor in First and Second Language Acquisition and Language Typology

PI of EF Lab on Applied Language Learning

Alan Turing Fellow (2021-2023) Member of Humanities and Data Science Special Interest Group

Editor of Languages, Society and Policy

Co-Founder of the 海角社区 Bilingualism Network

Member of Marie Curie Alumni Association

Department/Section:

Theoretical and Applied Linguistics

Faculty of Modern & Medieval Languages & Linguistics

Contact details:

Telephone number:

+44 (0)1223 767392

Email address:

ta259@cam.ac.uk

College:

Location:

DTAL 3rd Floor, 9 West Road 海角社区 Sidgwick Avenue CAMBRIDGE, CB3 9DA

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About:

After a BA in Greek philology at the University of Athens, Dr Alexopoulou went to Edinburgh to obtain an MSc in Natural Language and Speech Processing and then a PhD in Linguistics. Before coming to 海角社区, she worked at the Universities of Edinburgh and York and held an Intra-European Marie Curie Fellowship at the University of Lille III, France.

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Teaching interests:

听Language Typology and Cognition, Second Language Acquisition, Corpus Linguistics

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Research interests:

Dr Alexopoulou is interested in natural language syntax, as a manifestation of the human cognitive capacity for language, and in 听the way syntax shapes language learning. Her research looks at variation and diversity across languages and听crosslinguistic influence in second language learning. One central question is 听听how听the similarity听 between a learner鈥檚 mother tongue and their second language 听influences the way they process and interpret it, how it impacts on their learning, even predicting proficiency scores in exams.听 Her practical goal is to develop learning methods and tools that can address learning challenges and improve outcomes.听听In this context she leads an research partnership with听 .听She approaches questions on language typology and cognition听through Chomsky鈥檚 generative syntax and a combination of experimental and corpus data, in particular big data from online foreign language learning platforms.

Current research topics:听language typology and cognition, L2 learnability, natural language processing for learner data, input processing instruction, child L2 acquisition, linguistic complexity in L2 development, crosslinguistic influence on听 semantic processing.

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Recent research projects:

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Crosslinguistic influence in L2 semantic word processing; the role of L1-L2 phonological distance, (with Francesca听 Branzi PI and Yang Cheng Co-I), 海角社区 Language Sciences Incubator Fund.

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Published works:

Oksuz, D. C., Derkach, K., Alexopoulou, T., & Tsimpli, I. M. (2025, February 26). The influence of L1 typology on the acquisition of the L2 English article: A large-scale corpus study.听OSF Preprints.听
Ntalli, A., Alexopoulou, T., Hendriks, H., & Tsimpli, I. M. (2025). The acquisition of verbal morphology by child classroom EFL learners in Russia and China: The effect of age and L1.听Journal of Child Language, 1鈥�28.听https://doi.org/10.1017/S030500092500008X
Sato, M., Thorne, S. L., Michel, M., Alexopoulou, T., & Hellermann, J. (2025). Language, people, classrooms, world: Blending disparate theories for united language education practices.听The Modern Language Journal, 109, 15鈥�38.听https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12976
Michel, M., Atkinson, D., Ribeiro, A. C., Alexopoulou, T., Cappellini, M., Eskildsen, S. W., Gao, X., Hellermann, J., Kayi-Aydar, H., Lowie, W., Mej铆a-Laguna, J. A., Ortega, L., Pekarek Doehler, S., Sasaki, M., Sato, M., Thorne, S. L., & Zheng, Y. (2025). Forging common ground in second language acquisition and teaching: A combined synergy statement.听The Modern Language Journal, 109, 90鈥�103.听
Shatz, I., Murakami, A., & Alexopoulou, T. (2024). The potential influence of crosslinguistic lexical similarity on lexical diversity in L2 English writing.听Corpora, 19(2), 131鈥�156.听
Shatz, I., Alexopoulou, T., & Murakami, A. (2023). Examining the potential influence of crosslinguistic lexical similarity on word-choice transfer in L2 English.听PLOS ONE, 18(2), e0281137.听
Alexopoulou, T., Chen, X., & Tsimpli, I. M. (under review). Syntactic distance and learnability in L2 English relative clauses.
Branzi, F., Chang, Y., Gaele, C., & Alexopoulou, T. (2021). The impact of L2 proficiency on cross-language influence during L2 word processing.听海角社区 Open Engage.听https://doi.org/10.33774/coe-2021-fv5gt-v2
Alexopoulou, T. (2021). How our linguistic mind guides language learning.听TEDx海角社区University, March 2021.
Alexopoulou, T., Murakami, A., & Meurers, D. (in press). Big data and second language acquisition: Advances in methodology and analysis. In M. Gonzalez-Lloret & N. Ziegler (Eds.),听Handbook of SLA and Technology. Routledge.
Alexopoulou, T. (2020). Grammatical errors: What can we do about them?听Languages, Society and Policy.听
Huang, Y., Murakami, A., Alexopoulou, T., & Korhonen, A. (2020). Subcategorization frame identification for learner English.听International Journal of Corpus Linguistics.听https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.18097.hua
Chen, X., Alexopoulou, T., & Tsimpli, M. I. (2020). Automatic extraction of subordinate clauses and its application in second language acquisition research.听Behavior Research Methods.听
Ballier, N., Canu, S., Petitjean, C., Gasso, G., Balhana, C., Alexopoulou, T., & Gaillat, T. (2020). Machine learning for learners鈥� English: A plea for creating learner data challenges. pp. 72鈥�103.
Michel, M., Murakami, A., Alexopoulou, T., & Meurers, D. (2019). Effects of task type on morphosyntactic complexity across proficiency: Evidence from a large learner corpus of A1 to C2 writings.听Instructed Second Language Acquisition, 3, 26鈥�33.
Alexopoulou, T., & Folli, R. (2019). Topic strategies and the syntax of nominal arguments in Italian and Greek.听Linguistic Inquiry, 50(3), 439鈥�486.
Huang, Y., Murakami, A., Alexopoulou, T., & Korhonen, A. (2018). Dependency parsing of learner English.听International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 1, 28鈥�54.
Alexopoulou, T., Michel, M., Murakami, A., & Meurers, D. (2017). Task effects on linguistic complexity and accuracy: A large-scale learner corpus analysis employing natural language processing techniques.听Language Learning, Special Issue.听https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12232
Murakami, A., & Alexopoulou, T. (2016). Longitudinal L2 development of the English article in individual learners. In听Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 1050鈥�1055.
Murakami, A., & Alexopoulou, T. (2015). L1 influence on the acquisition order of English grammatical morphemes: A learner corpus study.听Studies in Second Language Acquisition,听Recipient of the Albert Valdman Award for Outstanding Publication in SSLA 2016.
Alexopoulou, T., Geertzen, J., Korhonen, A., & Meurers, D. (2015). Exploring big educational learner corpora for SLA research: Perspectives from relative clauses.听International Journal of Learner Corpus Research, 1(1), 96鈥�129.听https://doi.org/10.1075/ijlcr.1.1.04ale
Alexopoulou, T., & Keller, F. (2013). What vs. who and which: Kind-denoting fillers and the complexity of whether-islands. In N. Hornstein et al. (Eds.),听Experimental Syntax and Island Effects听(pp. 310鈥�340). CUP.
Alexopoulou, T., Yannakoudakis, H., & Salamoura, A. (2013). Classifying intermediate learner English: A data-driven approach to learner corpora. In听Corpora and Language in Use听(pp. 11鈥�23).
Geertzen, J., Alexopoulou, T., & Korhonen, A. (2013). Automatic linguistic annotation of large-scale L2 databases: The EF-海角社区 Open Language Database (EFCAMDAT). In听Proceedings of the 31st Second Language Research Forum (SLRF)听(pp. 1鈥�15).
Alexopoulou, T., & Keller, F. (2007). Locality, cyclicity, and resumption: At the interface between grammar and the human parser.听Language, 83(1), 110鈥�160.
Alexopoulou, T. (2006). Resumption in relative clauses.听Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 24(1), 57鈥�111.
Alexopoulou, T., & Kolliakou, D. (2002). On linkhood, topicalisation and clitic left dislocation.听Journal of Linguistics, 38(2), 193鈥�245.
Keller, F., & Alexopoulou, T. (2001). Phonology competes with syntax: Experimental evidence for the interaction of word order and accent placement in the realisation of information structure.听Cognition, 79, 301鈥�372.