Comparing Single-Word Insertions and Multi-Word Alternations in Bilingual Speech: Insights from Pupillometry
Comparing Single-Word Insertions and Multi-Word Alternations in Bilingual Speech: Insights from Pupillometry
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DOI：
10.3390/languages7040267
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发表时间：
2022-12-01
期刊：
影响因子：
0.9
通讯作者：
Dussias, Paola E.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Johns, Michael A.;Dussias, Paola E.
著名的社会语言学语言混合理论假设，一种语言的单字插入到另一种语言中是一个不同的过程，而不是两种语言之间的多字交替，因为前者在形态句法上压倒性地融入了周围的语言。到目前为止，这种区别还没有在理解上得到检验。本研究利用瞳孔测量法考察了波多黎各熟练的西班牙语-英语双语者对单字插入和多字交替的在线加工。参与者听到了包含目标名词/形容词对的句子(1)单语西班牙语，(2)西班牙语名词被替换为对应的英语翻译，然后是西班牙语名后形容词，以及(3)名词和形容词同时出现在英语中，形容词出现在英语名前位置。与单语西班牙语相比，两种类型的语言混合都会引起更大的瞳孔反应，尽管这种差异的大小取决于目标名词的语法性别。重要的是，单词插入和多词交替彼此没有区别。综上所述，这些发现表明，形态句法整合并不是单字插入的决定性特征，至少在理解方面是如此，而且理解系统是根据双语语音的分布特性进行调整的。
Prominent sociolinguistic theories of language mixing have posited that single-word insertions of one language into the other are the result of a distinct process than multi-word alternations between two languages given that the former overwhelmingly surface morphosyntactically integrated into the surrounding language. To date, this distinction has not been tested in comprehension. The present study makes use of pupillometry to examine the online processing of single-word insertions and multi-word alternations by highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals in Puerto Rico. Participants heard sentences containing target noun/adjective pairs (1) in unilingual Spanish, (2) where the Spanish noun was replaced with its English translation equivalent, followed by a Spanish post-nominal adjective, and (3) where both the noun and adjective appeared in English with the adjective occurring in the English pre-nominal position. Both types of language mixing elicit larger pupillary responses when compared to unilingual Spanish speech, though the magnitude of this difference depends on the grammatical gender of the target noun. Importantly, single-word insertions and multi-word alternations did not differ from one another. Taken together, these findings suggest that morphosyntactic integration is not the defining feature of single-word insertions, at least in comprehension, and that the comprehension system is tuned to the distributional properties of bilingual speech.