Resolving Cross-Language Ambiguity: Consequences for Processing and Learning

日常语言充满了歧义。例如，“bark”这个词既表示树的外部，也表示狗发出的声音。另一种歧义涉及到近义词，比如几乎可以互换的词“沙发”和“沙发”。这些歧义对语言处理提出了要求，因为在语言使用过程中，即使只有一种与上下文相关，这两种选择都可能变得活跃。一个悬而未决的问题是歧义是如何在语言理解和产生过程中被解决的，这个问题对双语者来说可能会被放大。本研究旨在调查双语者歧义解决的相关问题。特别是，本研究将研究“翻译歧义”，这是由于一种语言中的一个词在另一种语言中有多种翻译而导致的。本文将从成人西班牙语学习者的语言理解和语言产生两方面考察翻译歧义，以具体测试歧义的后果在接受性和生产性语言使用中是否相似。因此，参与者将执行包括“翻译生产”（看到一个单词并将其大声翻译成另一种语言）和“翻译识别”（看到一对单词并指出它们是否相互翻译）的任务。参与者还将在有和没有支持句上下文的情况下执行翻译任务，以确定上下文在多大程度上有助于解决翻译歧义。本文将对两种训练模式进行评估，以评估它们在减少与翻译相关的学习困难-歧义词方面的成功。在整个项目中，将关注认知技能（如工作记忆）的个体差异对翻译歧义造成的干扰的影响。更广泛地说，这项工作调查了成年人的第二语言学习和加工。总体目标是改进成人第二语言学习的训练方法。

Everyday language is filled with ambiguities. For example, the word 'bark' means both the outer part of a tree and the sound a dog makes. Another kind of ambiguity involves near-synonyms, such as the nearly interchangeable words 'couch' and 'sofa'. These ambiguities create demands on language processing because both alternatives may become active during language use, even when only one is relevant to the context. One open question is how ambiguity is resolved during language comprehension and production, a problem that is likely to be magnified for bilinguals. The proposed research investigates questions regarding ambiguity resolution by bilinguals. In particular, this research will examine 'translation ambiguity', which results from a word in one language having more than one translation into another language. Translation ambiguity will be examined both with respect to language comprehension and language production in native English speakers who are learning Spanish as adults in order to test specifically whether the consequences of ambiguity are similar in receptive and productive language use. Accordingly, participants will perform tasks involving "translation production" by seeing a word and translating it aloud into the other language and "translation recognition" by seeing a pair of words and indicating if they are translations of each other. Participants will also perform translation tasks with and without supportive sentence context to determine the extent to which context can help resolve translation ambiguity. Two training paradigms will be evaluated to assess their success at reducing the difficulties associated with learning translation-ambiguous words. Throughout the project, attention will be given to the effects of individual differences in cognitive skill (e.g., working memory) on disruptions due to translation ambiguity. More broadly, the work investigates adult second language learning and processing. The overall goal is to improve training methods for second language learning by adults.