Doctoral Dissertation Research: Using eye-tracking to study auditory comprehension in codeswitching: Evidence for the link between production and comprehension

双语者在其他双语者在场的情况下进行一种称为语码转换的语言技能，定义为在同一对话中两种或多种语言之间的流动交替（例如“厄尔尼诺在阅读这本书”）。语码转换曾经被认为是缺乏语言能力的标志，三十年的研究表明，语码转换是系统的，而不是随机的。以往的研究主要从理论和社会语言学的角度对语码转换的产生进行了研究，而对语码转换言语的理解则是一个研究较少的领域。然而，这对理解系统有着至关重要的影响。虽然生产是在扬声器的控制下，听众必须在真实的时间无缝集成多种语言，以成功地理解代码转换语音。Jorge Valdés Kroff将在保拉杜西亚斯博士和Chip Gerfen博士的指导下进行一系列实验，以调查在生产中更频繁的代码转换是否更容易被双语者理解。他们将利用语码转换名词短语中语法性别的存在来研究这个问题，并将使用一种被称为视觉世界范式的眼动追踪方法。参与者被显示在视觉场景中的对象，同时听一个短语，名称的对象之一。通过观察眼动模式，研究者能够推断出言语理解的时间进程。这一系列的研究提供了一个理想的测试基础，通过专门测试的假设，语言使用和曝光的理解系统如何处理语言的关键后果，检查生产和理解之间的联系。此外，对美国西班牙语-英语双语者的关注将为我们社会中代表性严重不足但日益明显的部门提供重要信息，并对教育和认知方面的语言政策产生影响。

Bilinguals in the presence of other bilinguals engage in a linguistic skill known as codeswitching, defined as the fluid alternation between two or more languages within the same conversation (e.g. "El niño está reading el book"). Once thought to be a sign of lack of competence in either language, three decades of research has revealed that codeswitching is systematic and not random. Previous research has mainly studied the production of codeswitching both from theoretical and sociolinguistic perspectives, leaving the comprehension of codeswitched speech an understudied area of inquiry. Yet there are critical consequences for the comprehension system. Whereas production is under the control of the speaker, a listener must seamlessly integrate multiple languages in real time in order to successfully comprehend codeswitched speech. Jorge Valdés Kroff, under the supervision of Drs. Paola Dussias and Chip Gerfen, will conduct a series of experiments to investigate whether codeswitches that are more frequent in production are easier to comprehend for bilinguals. They will capitalize on the presence of grammatical gender in codeswitched noun phrases to investigate this question and will use an eye-tracking methodology known as the visual world paradigm. Participants are shown objects in a visual scene while listening to a phrase that names one of the objects. By examining the pattern of eye movements, researchers are able make inferences on the timecourse of comprehension of speech. This line of research provides an ideal testing ground for examining the link between production and comprehension by specifically testing the hypothesis that language use and exposure have critical consequences for how the comprehension system processes language. Furthermore, the focus on Spanish-English bilinguals in the U.S. will provide important information on a vastly underrepresented yet increasingly visible sector of our society with implications for language policy in education and cognition in general.