Doctoral Dissertation Research: Inconsistent input and amount of exposure: child second language acquisition of Fering, a dialect of North Frisian

对语言习得的研究从根本上关注的是儿童如何在接受输入的情况下习得语言。然而，这些研究往往侧重于投入的数量，而不是投入的类型。最近的研究使用人工语言来研究儿童如何获得不一致的输入。宾夕法尼亚州立大学博士生艾莉森·艾塞尔·亨德里克斯在凯莉·N·杰克逊博士和凯伦·米勒博士的指导下，研究了当前关于费林语言习得的理论，费林是德国北部的一种濒危语言。本研究比较了儿童和青少年儿童的一致输入和不一致输入的习得情况。语法性别是一种将名词按性别分类的系统，通常会导致定冠词the的不同版本。说话者在语法上产生的性别不一致，说话者可以交替使用两种性别。另一方面，说话者对语法数字的看法基本一致。一半说渡轮的孩子把它作为母语学习，而另一半则是在学校学习。因此，本研究测试了输入类型和暴露程度对语言习得的影响。本研究测试了中小学生对语法性别、数字和一般流利性的理解和产出。父母将完成一份语言使用问卷，说费尔语的父母将完成与他们的孩子相同的实验。成年社区成员将参加言论自由访谈，以进一步衡量社区语言输入。该项目对语言学理论和少数民族语言研究都有同等的贡献。通过测试一种自然语言并跟踪随着时间的推移对不一致输入的习得，该项目进一步加深了儿童语言习得的一般知识。使用定性任务和实验任务可以更好地理解儿童学习少数民族语言所面临的任务。本文对北弗里斯语进行了研究，但其结果对其他少数民族语言复兴的案例有所启发，并将引起教师和语言规划者的兴趣。该项目还有助于培养一名研究生。

Investigations of language acquisition are fundamentally concerned with how children acquire language given the input they receive. However, these studies often focus on the amount of input rather than the type of input. Recent studies have used artificial languages to study how children acquire inconsistent input. Pennsylvania State University doctoral student, Alison Eisel Hendricks, supervised by Drs. Carrie N. Jackson and Karen Miller, investigates current theories of language acquisition of Fering, an endangered language spoken in northern Germany. The dissertation compares the acquisition of consistent versus inconsistent input by children and young adult-learners of Fering. Grammatical gender is a system that categorizes nouns into genders, often resulting in different versions of the definite article "the". Fering speakers produce grammatical gender inconsistently, with speakers using both genders interchangeably. On the other hand, speakers largely agree on grammatical number. Half of Fering-speaking children acquire it as a native language, while half learn Fering in school. Thus, this project tests the influence of input type and amount of exposure on language acquisition.This dissertation tests elementary and high school students' comprehension and production of grammatical gender, number, and general fluency. Parents will complete a language use questionnaire and Fering-speaking parents will complete the same experiments as their children. Adult community members will participate in free speech interviews to further measure community language input. This project contributes equally to linguistic theory and minority language studies. By testing a natural language and tracking acquisition of inconsistent input over time, the project furthers general knowledge of child language acquisition. Using qualitative and experimental tasks betters our understanding of the task facing children learning minority languages. This dissertation investigates North Frisian, but the results inform other cases of minority language revitalization, and will interest teachers and language planners. The project also contributes to the training of a graduate student.