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

本论文项目旨在研究以英语为母语的人对第二语言的习得，并根据语法性别定义名词类。精通多种语言已经成为越来越重要的技能；孩子们似乎相对容易就能流利地掌握一门外语，而成年人要熟练掌握第二语言却要经历持续的困难。虽然指导有帮助，但它的效果最终受到我们对为什么学习第二语言对成年人来说如此困难的理解的限制。尤其是掌握语法性别，已经被证明是一个巨大的挑战。与英语不同，有些语言不能将限定词“the”与任何名词连用。例如，西班牙语用限定词“el”表示“太阳”，而用“la”表示“月亮”；对名词使用错误的限定词被认为是语法错误。对于说第二语言的人来说，学习在说话和理解时使用“el”和“la”这样的词和正确的名词是一个巨大的挑战。这可能会导致误解，有时甚至令人尴尬，比如告诉别人你遇到了“la papa”（土豆），而你真正想说的是“el papa”（教皇）。研究还表明，以英语为母语的人会使用语法上的性别信息来帮助理解。另一方面，第二语言学习者很难以这种方式使用语法性别。为了找出使学习第二语言更成功的方法，我们必须首先确定是什么使学习语法性别等特定特征如此具有挑战性。本项目旨在了解为什么成年第二语言学习者在语法性别方面一直存在困难。它有两个主要目标：1)确定学习第二语言的不同方法如何使成年人或多或少成功地使用语法性别；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。将进行两个实验来实现这些目标。第一个测试将检测以德语为母语和第二语言的人在阅读句子时的脑电波。第二个实验将教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。学习后，研究人员将记录参与者在理解句子时的眼球运动。总之，这些实验将使研究人员能够确定成年语言学习者是否以及何时使用性别信息来简化理解；这项研究还将确定特定的学习方式是否能像母语人士那样，更好、更有效地使用语法上的性别信息。因此，本研究的结果不仅有助于确定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，其最终目标是为多语使用及其相关的社会和经济效益提供持续的社会收益。

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.