Doctoral Dissertation Research: Using ERPs to Track the Scope of Inhibition in Bilingual Speech

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，Rhonda McClain女士将在Judith Kroll博士和Eleonora Rossi博士的指导下为她的博士论文收集数据。对于学习较晚的人来说，流利地说第二语言是一项非常困难的技能，大概是因为第二语言与母语竞争选择。目前的研究表明，双语者即使只说一种语言，也会经历两种语言的持续激活。一个关键的问题是，双语者在尝试说第二语言时，如何防止说更占优势的语言或母语。最近的研究表明，为了说第二语言，母语会受到抑制。然而，对于母语中哪些类型的信息会被抑制，我们知之甚少。一种可能性是，一种语言中的所有单词都被抑制了。另一种情况是，一个意义相似的单词网络会一起变得活跃或被抑制。另一种可能性是，用另一种语言说过的特定单词被抑制了。目前还不清楚抑制是短暂的还是持久的。计划中的实验将通过电生理测量来测试抑制的范围（被抑制的内容）及其时间过程（抑制的持续时间），这可能会提供一个更敏感的语言计划最早时刻的指数。对双语者和单语者的比较也将确定双语者抑制其母语或更主要语言的反复要求是否赋予了相对于单语者在抑制控制领域的专业知识。这项资助的研究有许多更广泛的含义。它将提供关于多语言使用的重要基础知识，这将为当今社会的教育问题提供信息。在当今社会，许多学习者在童年早期阶段就面临着学习第二语言的任务，除非他们迅速掌握第二语言，否则他们将面临学业失败的风险。作为计划调查目标的抑制过程对更好地理解双语者在可能支持只使用一种语言的条件下保持两种语言的能力具有启示意义。这项研究还将有助于培养越来越多样化的语言科学家群体，包括本身就是双语的本科研究生。

With National Science Foundation support, Ms. Rhonda McClain will collect data for her doctoral dissertation under the direction of Dr. Judith Kroll and Dr. Eleonora Rossi. Speaking fluently in a second language is a notoriously difficult skill to develop as a late learner, presumably because the second language competes for selection with the native language. Current research demonstrates that bilinguals experience persistent activation of both languages even when speaking one language alone. A critical question is how bilinguals prevent speaking the more dominant or native language when trying to speak the second language. Recent studies have reported that the native language becomes inhibited, or suppressed, in order to speak in the second language. However, little is known about what type of information becomes inhibited in the native language. One possibility is that all of the words in one language are suppressed. Alternatively, a network of words that bear resemblance in meaning to each other become active or inhibited together. Another possibility is that specific words that had been spoken in the other language are inhibited. It is also unclear whether inhibition is momentary or long lasting. The planned experiments will test the scope of inhibition (what is inhibited) its time course (the duration of inhibition) by using electrophysiological measures that may provide a more sensitive index of the earliest moments of speech planning. A comparison of bilinguals and monolinguals will also determine whether the repeated requirement for bilinguals to inhibit their native or more dominant language confers expertise in the realm of inhibitory control relative to monolingual speakers.The funded research has a number of broader implications. It will contribute important foundational knowledge about multilingualism that will inform educational issues in a society in which many learners are faced with the task of acquiring a second language past the earliest stages of childhood and at risk for academic failure unless they acquire the second language rapidly. The inhibitory processes that are the target of the planned investigation hold implications for better understanding the ability of bilinguals to maintain the two languages under conditions that may support the use of only one language. The research will also contribute to the training of an increasingly diverse group of language scientists by including undergraduate research students who are themselves bilingual.