Doctoral Dissertation Research: Child/Adult Differences in Implicit/Explicit Knowledge of a Second Language

人们认为儿童是自然地“学习”语言的，而成年人必须学习语法才能学习第二语言（L2）。成年二语学习者通常会发展出广泛的关于二语的外显知识（有意识的，可以用语言表达的知识），但可能缺乏内隐知识（不能用语言表达，但可以快速轻松地获取的知识）。儿童的情况正好相反。但孩子们的学习环境也与成年人截然不同。内隐/外显语言知识的年龄差异是自然的还是环境的？本文探讨了成人和儿童在不同学习条件下是如何发展内隐和外显二语知识的，具体问题是：(1)儿童是否更倾向于内隐知识，(2)成人是否更倾向于外显知识，以及(3)儿童和成人在相同的控制训练条件下是否仍然如此。迄今为止还没有这样的研究，因为对内隐/外显知识的研究只测试了成年人，而对儿童的研究没有包括任务比较。在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，将开展两项关于儿童和成人显性知识和隐性知识的研究。第一项研究测试了具有相似教学经历的儿童和青年西班牙语第二语言学习者对动词形态的内隐和外显知识。第二项研究训练成人和儿童说一种人造的迷你语言；一半的受试者接受明确的规则指导，另一半则没有。这些研究的目的是检查年龄或教学是否是决定依赖外显和内隐知识的主要因素。这项研究有助于讨论儿童和成人的语言学习是否有本质上的相似或不同，有助于发展终身语言学习理论。研究结果有望对不同年龄组的有效教学法的发展产生影响。

It is thought that children "pick up" languages naturally, whereas adults must study grammar in order to learn a second language (L2). Adult L2 learners typically develop extensive explicit knowledge about the L2 (knowledge that is conscious and can be verbalized), but may lack implicit knowledge (knowledge that cannot be verbalized, but can be accessed quickly and easily.) The reverse is typical of children. But children also experience a very different learning environment from adults. Are age differences in implicit/explicit language knowledge maturational, or environmental?This dissertation research explores how adults and children in different learning conditions develop implicit and explicit L2 knowledge, specifically asking (1) whether children favor implicit knowledge, (2) whether adults favor explicit knowledge, and (3) whether this still holds when children and adults are under the same controlled training conditions. Such research has not been done to date, since research on implicit/explicit knowledge only tests adults, and research on children has not included task comparisons. With support from the National Science Foundation, two studies addressing explicit and implicit knowledge in children and adults will be carried out. The first tests child and young adult L2 learners of Spanish who have had similar instructional experiences on their implicit and explicit knowledge of verb morphology. The second study trains adults and children to speak an artificial mini-language; half the subjects receive explicit rule instruction, and the other half do not. The goal of these studies is to examine whether age or instruction is the primary factor in determining reliance on explicit vs. implicit knowledge. This research contributes to the discussion of whether child and adult language learning are fundamentally similar or different, helping to develop theories of language learning across the lifespan. Results are expected to have implications for the development of effective pedagogy for different age groups.