Doctoral Dissertation Research: Effects of Within- and Cross-language Ambiguity on Word Learning and Processing

世界上大多数人都是双语者，这使得我们有能力理解双语者和语言学习者是如何在语言内部和跨语言中处理语义模糊的单词的。当一种语言中的一个词在另一种语言中有多个翻译时，就会出现跨语言翻译歧义。已有研究表明，语言内歧义和跨语言歧义都影响着母语和第二语言词汇的学习和加工。然而，很少有研究探讨歧义词之间的意义相似性如何影响语义歧义词在一、二语中的习得和加工。在Tokowicz博士的指导下，Chelsea Eddington将在三个事件相关的潜在/行为实验中研究这些问题。实验1将研究语义相似度如何影响对已知无歧义词形的新词义学习。记忆和语义启动任务将测试单词新旧语义之间的语义相似性如何影响这些单词的学习和加工。实验2将通过词汇测试和语义关联任务来考察二语（德语）词汇的语义相似性如何影响这些词汇的学习和加工。实验3将考察德语学习者如何通过只教参与者一种翻译来将语义模糊的英语单词的意思扩展到德语词汇。学习者对单词的语义处理将通过翻译识别任务进行评估。本研究的结果将有助于更好地理解单语和二语学习者如何处理和学习语义模糊的单词，并将为单语和双语语义记忆模型提供信息。该项目还将支持一名有前途的语言学家的科学培训。

The majority of people in the world are bilingual, which gives importance to our ability to understand how bilinguals and language learners process semantically-ambiguous words both within and across languages. Cross-language translation ambiguity occurs when a word in one language has more than one translation in another language. Previous research indicates that within- and cross-language ambiguity both affect the learning and processing of words in the first language (L1) and in the second language (L2). However, little research has explored how the similarity in meaning between ambiguous words' meanings affects the acquisition and processing of semantically-ambiguous words and meanings in L1 and L2. Under the direction of Dr. Tokowicz, Chelsea Eddington will examine these issues in three event related potential/behavioral experiments. Experiment 1 will examine how semantic similarity impacts the learning of novel meanings for previously-known unambiguous word forms. Memory and semantic priming tasks will test how semantic similarity between the words' novel and old meanings affects the learning and processing of these words. Experiment 2 will examine how semantic similarity of L2 (German) vocabulary affects the learning and processing of these words using vocabulary tests and a semantic relatedness task. Experiment 3 will examine how learners of German extend meanings from ambiguous English words to German vocabulary words by teaching participants only one translation that corresponds to one meaning of semantically-ambiguous words. Learners' semantic processing of the words will be assessed using a translation-recognition task. The results of this study will provide a better understanding of how monolinguals and L2 learners process and learn semantically-ambiguous words, and will inform models of monolingual and bilingual semantic memory. The project will also support the scientific training of a promising linguistic scholar.