Heike Behrens studied German and English language and literature at the University of Kiel. She obtained her PhD in general linguistics at the University of Amsterdam in 1993. Her doctoral thesis dealt with language development in early childhood. Her psycholinguistic research focus led to work at various institutes specialised in linguistics and psychology: Technical University of Braunschweig, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (Nijmegen), University of California Berkeley (DFG fellowship grant), University of Cologne, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig). Between 2002 and 2005, she taught German language and literature at the University of Groningen (Netherlands). Since 2005, Heike Behrens has held a chair in Cognitive Linguistics and Language Acquisition Research at the University of Basel’s Department of Language and Literature (English and German). Current research projects deal with language acquisition and sensory semantics. She is also active in two graduate programmes: an SNSF Pro*Doc on "language as a social and cultural practice" and a DFG fellowship programme on "frequency effects in language" at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau.

Heike Behrens was born on 18 January 1962 in Itzehoe (Germany) and has been a member of the Swiss Science and Innovation Council (SSIC) since 2009.


Address
Prof. Dr. Heike Behrens
Universität Basel
Englisches Seminar
Nadelberg 6
CH-4051 Basel

Tel: +41 61 267 2786
Fax: +41 61 267 2780

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