Doctoral Dissertation Research: Dynamics of language processing and the consequences for new language learning

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As the economy, society, and culture of the United States continue to take part in a larger global culture, it is becoming more important to learn languages spoken in other countries, as well as to improve the methods for teaching English as a second language to the families arriving to the United States. Children appear to be better at learning new languages than adults, who instead have very mixed outcomes in how well they ultimately learn a new language. For decades, research has attempted to understand why adults experience more difficulty in learning new languages and what characterizes good language learners compared to less successful language learners, so that we can use this information to improve teaching methods. From this research, we have learned how certain factors contribute to the outcomes in new language learning, but much of the variability remains unaccounted for, suggesting that there is still a piece of the puzzle missing. With National Science Foundation support, Ms. Kinsey Bice, working under the direction of Dr. Judith Kroll, will investigate how individual differences in learning may shape patterns of new second language learning.The current project will examine how previous language experience combines with general cognitive resources to affect the trajectory of new language learning. Previous research has identified differences in the way that the native language is processed that may contribute to the trajectory of new language learning (i.e., fast and slow language learners), and that may also be affected by how speakers recruit various aspects of cognition (e.g., working memory, pattern abstraction) when processing their native language. This project will examine how these differences in skilled language processing predict the trajectory of new language learning, as well as whether the differences are related to variation in non-language abilities. Bilingual speakers, who already have experience with learning a new language and who do not use either language exactly as monolingual speakers do, have previously been found to be better at acquiring new languages, but bilinguals differ from each other in many ways that affect their language learning outcomes. This project will compare both monolingual and bilingual speakers in how they process their skilled languages and how they learn new languages. Behavioral methods and brain potentials will be used to determine whether the brain reflects some learning processes that are not apparent in behavior alone. The bilinguals tested will be typical college students who are taking advanced foreign language classes, as well as heritage Spanish speakers who are raised in Spanish-speaking homes but then educated in English. These two groups of bilinguals represent language experiences that American citizens often encounter themselves, while the monolingual groups will be recruited from parts of the United States that differ in the levels of ambient exposure to foreign languages.