Resolving Cross-Language Ambiguity: Consequences for Processing and Learning

日常语言充满了歧义。例如，“bark”这个词既指树的外部，也指狗发出的声音。另一种歧义涉及到近义词，比如“沙发”和“沙发”这两个几乎可以互换的词。这些模糊性对语言处理提出了要求，因为在语言使用过程中，这两种选择都可能变得活跃，即使只有一种选择与上下文相关。一个悬而未决的问题是如何在语言理解和生产过程中解决歧义，这个问题可能会被放大为双语者。拟议的研究调查的问题，由双语歧义解决。特别是，这项研究将探讨“翻译歧义”，这是一种语言中的一个词有一个以上的翻译到另一种语言的结果。翻译歧义将检查两个方面的语言理解和语言生产的母语为英语的人谁是学习西班牙语作为成年人，以具体测试是否歧义的后果是相似的接受和生产性的语言使用。因此，参与者将通过看到一个单词并将其大声翻译成另一种语言来执行涉及“翻译生产”的任务，以及通过看到一对单词并指示它们是否是彼此的翻译来执行“翻译识别”的任务。参与者还将在有和没有支持性句子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。两种训练模式将进行评估，以评估他们的成功，减少与学习的困难，歧义词。在整个项目中，将注意认知技能的个体差异的影响（例如，工作记忆）的中断，由于翻译歧义。 更广泛地说，这项工作调查成人第二语言学习和处理。总体目标是改进成人学习第二语言的培训方法。

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.