Doctoral Dissertation Research: Lexical Links and Anticipatory Processing: Psycholinguistic Investigations of Multiple Factors in Learning and Using Grammatical Gender

本论文旨在考察以英语为母语的人习得第二语言的情况，并从语法性别的角度对名词类别进行界定。流利的多种语言能力已经成为一项越来越重要的技能；儿童似乎相对轻松地就能流利地掌握一门语言，而成年人要熟练掌握第二门语言却一直面临着困难。尽管教学有帮助，但它的有效性最终受到我们对为什么成年人学习第二语言如此困难的理解的限制。事实证明，掌握语法性别是一个巨大的挑战。与英语不同的是，有些语言不能在任何名词中使用“the”这样的限定词。例如，西班牙语用定语“el”表示“太阳”，用“la”表示“月亮”；在名词中使用错误的限定词被认为是语法错误。对于以第二语言为母语的人来说，学习在说和理解时将“el”和“la”等词与正确的名词搭配使用是一个巨大的挑战。这可能会导致误解，有时甚至是令人尴尬的误解，比如告诉某人你遇到了“La Papa”(土豆)，而你真的想说你遇到了“el Papa”(教皇)。研究还表明，以英语为母语的人使用语法性别信息来帮助理解更容易。另一方面，第二语言学习者很难以这种方式使用语法性别。为了从总体上找出学习第二语言更成功的方法，我们必须首先确定是什么让学习语法性别等特定特征变得如此具有挑战性。这个项目旨在了解为什么成人第二语言学习者在语法性别方面持续存在困难。它有两个主要目标：1)确定不同的学习第二语言的方式如何使成年人在使用语法性别方面取得或多或少的成功；2)了解成年人是否以及何时可以使用语法性别信息来简化对第二语言的理解。为了实现这些目标，将进行两项实验。第一项研究将考察以德语为母语和第二语言的人在朗读句子时的脑电波。第二个实验将教授以英语和德语为母语的人一种使用语法性别的人工语言。名词及其性别词汇(如“el”和“la”)将通过两种不同的方式学习。在学习之后，研究人员将记录参与者在理解句子时的眼球运动。总而言之，这些实验将使研究人员能够确定成人语言学习者是否以及何时使用性别信息来简化理解；研究还将确定特定的学习方式是否会像母语人士那样更好、更有效地使用语法性别信息。因此，这项研究的结果不仅有助于找出第二语言学习者问题的根源，而且还将为语言教学提供明确和直接的实践证据，最终目标是在多语言使用中提供持续的社会收益及其相关的社会和经济利益。

This dissertation project aims to examine native English speakers' acquisition of a second language with noun classes defined in terms of grammatical gender. Fluent multilingualism has become an increasingly important skill; and whereas children seem to attain fluency with relative ease, adults experience persistent difficulty becoming proficient in a second language. Though instruction helps, its effectiveness is ultimately limited by our understanding of why learning a second language is so difficult for adults. Mastering grammatical gender, in particular, has proven a great challenge. Unlike English, some language cannot use determiners like "the" with any noun. Spanish, for example, uses the definite determiner "el" for "sun" but "la" for "moon"; using the wrong determiner with a noun is considered a grammatical error. For second language speakers, learning to use words like "el" and "la" with the right nouns when speaking and comprehending poses a great challenge. This can lead to misunderstandings, sometimes embarrassing ones, like telling someone that you met "la papa" (the potato) when you really meant to say that you met "el Papa" (the Pope). Research also shows that native speakers use grammatical gender information to help make comprehension easier. Second language learners, on the other hand, have difficulty using grammatical gender in this manner. In order to identify ways to make learning a second language more successful in general, we must first determine what makes learning specific features like grammatical gender so challenging. This project aims to understand why adult second language learners suffer persistent difficulty with grammatical gender. It has two primary goals: 1) to determine how different ways of learning a second language can make adults more or less successful at using grammatical gender, and 2) to understand if and when adults can use grammatical gender information to ease comprehension in a second language. Two experiments will be conducted to address these goals. The first will examine the brainwaves of native and second language speakers of German while they read sentences. The second experiment will teach native speakers of English and German an artificial language that uses grammatical gender. Nouns and their gender words (like "el" and "la") will be learned in two different ways. After learning, the researchers will record participants' eye movements while they comprehend sentences. Together, these experiments will allow the researchers to determine if and when adult language learners use gender information to ease comprehension; the research will also identify whether particular ways of learning lead to better and more effective use of grammatical gender information, like native speakers. The outcomes of this research will therefore not only help identify the source of second language learners' problems, but will also provide clear and direct practical evidence for language teaching, with the ultimate goal of providing sustained societal gains in multilingualism and its associated social and economic benefits.