Language Processing in Bilinguals

语言科学家发现，双语者不能轻易地“关掉”他们的一种语言。如果双语者不能像单语者那样轻松地发挥作用，那么他们如何控制目标语言的使用呢？该研究项目调查了当双语者的词汇和语法结构都可用时，双语者选择预期语言的条件。这项工作将探讨一些句子的上下文如何限制语言处理到一种语言，但其他人鼓励双语者的两种语言之间的代码切换。这项工作使用双语者的经验作为一个窗口，以了解语言处理及其对认知控制的后果的相互作用的性质。该项目具有一些更广泛的影响。它寻求有关多语制的基本知识，这些知识可以为社会中的教育问题提供信息，在这个社会中，许多学习者在童年的最早阶段之后面临着获得第二语言的任务。这项研究还将有助于培训一批不同的认知科学家，包括双语本科生和研究生，并促进与西班牙科学家的国际科学合作。

Language scientists have discovered that bilinguals cannot easily "switch off" one of their languages. If bilinguals cannot easily function as monolinguals, then how do they control the use of the intended language? This research program investigates the conditions that enable bilinguals to select the intended language when words and grammatical structures in both languages are available. The work will explore how some sentence contexts restrict language processing to one language alone but others encourage code switching between the bilingual's two languages. The work uses the experience of bilinguals as a window into the nature of the interactions that characterize language processing and their consequences for cognitive control. This project has a number of broader implications. It seeks foundational knowledge about multilingualism that can inform educational issues in a society in which many learners are faced with the task of acquiring a second language after the earliest stages of childhood. The research will also contribute to the training of a diverse group of cognitive scientists by including bilingual undergraduate and graduate students and by fostering an international scientific collaboration with scientists in Spain.