Boping Yuan’s research interests are in linguistic approaches to second/third language acquisition, particularly in non-native language acquisition of Chinese in the framework of formal linguistics, with particular attention paid to initial, developmental and final stages in non-native language acquisition of Chinese and taking into account important factors involved such as language transfer, linguistic complexity involved, availability and salience of positive evidence, quality and quantity of input, etc. He has also developed interests in bilingualism/bidialectalism and wellbeing. He is currently involved in a joint project with Shanghai Jiao Tong University on bilingualism/bidialectalism and aphasia.
He was Vice President of the International Society of Chinese Language Teaching in 2005-2009, and has been serving as a member of its executive committee since 2010. He is the General Editor of Journal of Second Language Studies (John Benjamins), and has been serving as a member of editorial boards of a number of prestigious journals, such as Second Language Research, International Review of Applied Linguistics, Journal of Chinese Linguistics, Lingua, 《外语教学与研究》，《世界汉语教学》, 《现代外语》, etc.
Prof. Yuan continues supervising his current PhD students in linguistic approaches to second language acquisition of Chinese and bi/multilingualism.
Empirical studies of developmental and synchronic aspects of second language acquisition, bilingualism and multilingualism; linguistic approaches to non-native Chinese grammars; second language acquisition theory; formal linguistics; syntax and semantics, bilingualism/bidialectalism and aphasia.
Current PhD students
| Hsiaoching Wang: L2 Acquisition of Wh-indeterminants in Mandarin by English and Korean Speakers. |
| Jingting Xiang: Definiteness and Specificity in L2/L3 Mandarin Grammars |
| Fei Yuan: L2 Acquisition and Processing of Chinese Nominal Phrases |
| Chenyang Zhang: L2 acquisition of empty verbs in Mandarin Chinese by English-speaking learners |