RUI: The Role of Childhood Language Memory in Adult Language Learning: Korean Adoptees Learning Korean as Adults

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。大量的研究表明，早期的语言经验对于达到母语水平至关重要。 然而，仍然不清楚的是，仅限于非常早期的早期语言经验是否仍然可以帮助成年语言学习者重新学习语言，即使在多年不用之后。 在一个系列的研究中，韩国被收养者在被收养时（3岁至8岁）与韩国完全隔绝，被收养者似乎没有显示出他们早期与韩国人接触的任何优势。 事实上，他们似乎对自己的童年语言没有记忆，这似乎表明，如果没有持续的童年语言经验，早期语言经验的好处就无法保持。 相比之下，其他研究表明，成年学习者的传统语言，他们说或听到只有在幼儿期这样的早期，中断的语言经验的好处。 虽然这些成年学习者在幼儿期之后没有经常使用这种语言的经验，但他们说话的口音比那些没有这种经验的成年学习者要好，这表明早期语言经验的好处可以保持，即使这种经验在幼儿期之后不再继续。 为什么儿童时期的语言记忆对成年的传统语言学习者来说是可及的，而对被收养者来说却不是？ 也许在这两种情况下，儿童的语言记忆是完整的，但被收养者无法访问他们的记忆，因为他们已经多年没有使用或听到这种语言了。 相比之下，学习儿童语言的成年人可能能够重新访问这些记忆，因为重新学习语言有助于激活旧的记忆。 因此，如果韩国被收养者重新学习他们童年的语言，他们可能能够重新使用他们童年的语言。 或者，重新学习传统语言的成年人可能通过家庭成员或传统社区成员有限但持续地接触他们的童年语言。因此，该项目将调查韩国成年被收养者的韩语再学习情况，这一群体在幼儿期后不会继续接触韩语。 在研究1中，作为成年人学习韩语的被收养人将在第一学期韩语课程的开始和结束时参加语言评估。 在研究2中，没有韩语经验的被收养者将参加相同的语言评估之前和之后的一系列知觉训练课程，重点是韩国塞辅音。 在这两项研究中，被收养者？成绩将与英语单语的非收养者进行比较，看看收养者是否比第一次学习英语的人有任何优势。 他们还将与母语为韩语的人进行比较，以评估他们的能力是否与母语相似。 我们还将调查这些影响是否会随着一系列心理和情感因素而变化。这项研究将丰富我们对早期语言经验如何影响成人语言学习的理解。它将告诉我们早期的，中断的语言经验对以后的语言学习的作用，这对那些可能想让孩子接触一种以上语言的父母有影响。此外，这项研究将告知那些希望帮助孩子学习或保持童年语言的国际收养儿童的父母。它还将有助于我们通过研究收养前的经历如何影响后来的发展，甚至在成年后的发展的理解。最后，这项研究将有助于语言教学课程的设计，特别是对于那些许多语言学习者来自不同类型的传统背景的课程。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Extensive research has demonstrated that early linguistic experience is critical for achieving native-like proficiency in a language. However, what remains unclear is whether early linguistic experience that is limited only to the very early years can still aid the adult language learner when relearning the language, even after many years of disuse. In one series of studies of Korean adoptees who were completely cut off from Korean when they were adopted (between ages 3 and 8), the adoptees do not seem to show any advantages of their early experiences with Korean. In fact, they appear to show no memory for their childhood language, which seems to indicate that without continued experience with a childhood language, the benefits of early linguistic experience cannot be maintained. In contrast, other studies indicate that adult learners of a heritage language that they spoke or heard only during early childhood do show benefits of such early, discontinued linguistic experience. Although they did not have regular experience with the language after early childhood, these adult learners speak with a better accent than those adult learners who have not had such experiences, thus demonstrating that the benefits of early linguistic experience can be maintained, even when that experience is not continued after early childhood. Why is childhood language memory accessible for the adult heritage language learners but not the adoptees? Perhaps the childhood language memory is intact in both cases, but the adoptees cannot access their memory because they have not used or heard the language in many years. In contrast, adult learners of a childhood language may be able to re-access these memories because relearning the language helps activate an old memory. Thus, if Korean adoptees were to relearn their childhood language, they might be able to tap back into their childhood language. Alternatively, adults who relearned their heritage language may have had some limited but continued exposure to their childhood language through family members or members of the heritage community. This project will therefore investigate the relearning of Korean among adult Korean adoptees, a group that would not have experienced continued exposure to the language after early childhood. In Study 1, adoptees who are learning Korean as adults will take part in a language assessment at the beginning and end of their first-semester Korean language course. In Study 2, adoptees with no prior experience with Korean will take part the same language assessment before and after a series of perceptual training sessions focusing on Korean stop consonants. In both studies, adoptees? performance will be compared to that of English-monolingual non-adoptees to see whether adoptees show any advantage over first-time learners of the language. They will also be compared to native Korean speakers to assess how native-like their abilities are. We will also investigate whether these effects vary with a range of psychological and emotional factors.This study will enrich our understanding of how early language experiences can impact adult language learning. It will inform us about the role of early, discontinued language experience on later language learning, which has implications for parents who may want to expose their young children to more than one language. Additionally, the study will inform parents of internationally adopted children who may want to help their children in learning or maintaining their childhood language. It will also contribute to our understanding of adoptee development by examining how pre-adoption experiences may affect later development, even in adulthood. Finally, the study will aid in the design of language instruction courses, especially for those programs in which many of the language learners come from various types of heritage backgrounds.