Doctoral Dissertation Research: Cross-language Interactions in Beginning Adult Bilinguals

在外语成功率方面，美国远远落后于其他国家，这对我们在日益全球化的世界中的参与、安全和发展有着深远的影响。造成这种滞后的一个原因可能是美国学生接触第二语言的时间相对较晚，通常要到高中或大学才开始。在这个年龄段学习第二语言可能是相当具有挑战性的，部分原因是年轻人已经拥有了广泛的母语语言知识。本研究的目的是为了更好地了解不同类型的母语知识如何影响第二语言单词学习：母语如何帮助或阻碍年轻人的第二语言单词学习，为什么？了解这些相互作用将有助于我们进一步了解新的第二语言单词是如何在大脑中表现出来的，以及它们是如何与现有的语言系统联系起来的。在何种程度上涉及到的母语不同的学习方法的功能也将进行测试。这些研究将有助于形成更有效的、基于证据的外语教学实践的基础。更具体地说，本研究使用事件相关电位（erp）在实验室环境中跟踪单语大学生的第二语言单词学习。erp以毫秒为单位测量大脑的电活动，这使得它们在跟踪单词识别过程随时间的快速发展方面很有用。重点是两种特定类型的母语单词，以及它们的相对重要性如何随着学习时间的推移而变化。目标1考虑新学的第二语言单词（例如，lait是法语单词“牛奶”的意思）如何与在形式上重叠的邻近母语单词（例如，lay, last）的心理表征相互作用。目标2考虑第二语言单词表示（例如，lait）和它们的母语翻译对等物（例如，milk）之间的联系，它们在意义上重叠。这两种类型的词汇在第二语言学习和加工的理论模型中都起着重要的作用；然而，它们的具体角色在不同的模型中有很大的不同。因此，该领域需要经验证据来评判这些不同的模型，并促进我们对新学单词如何与母语词汇整合的理解。了解二语词汇学习的神经认知机制是开展循证教学实践和提高青年成人学生外语学习成绩的先决条件。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The United States lags far behind other countries in terms of foreign language success rates, which has far-reaching implications for our engagement, safety, and growth in an increasingly global world. One reason for this lag might be that American students are first introduced to a second language relatively late, often not until high school or college. Learning a second language at these ages can be quite challenging, in part because of the extensive linguistic knowledge that young adults already have in their native language. The goal of the present research is to better understand how different types of native language knowledge influence second language word learning: How does the native language help or hinder second language word learning in young adults and why? Understanding these interactions will further our understanding of how the new second language words are represented in the brain and how they are connected up to the existing linguistic system. The extent to which involvement of the native language differs as a function of learning methodology will also be tested. These studies will help form the foundation for the development of more effective, evidence-based foreign language teaching practices.More specifically, the proposed studies use event-related potentials (ERPs) to track second language word learning among monolingual college students in a laboratory setting. ERPs measure the electrical activity of the brain on a millisecond-by-millisecond basis, which makes them useful for tracking how rapid word recognition processes unfold over time. The focus is on two specific types of native language words and how their relative importance changes over learning time. Aim 1 considers how newly learned second language words (e.g., lait is the French word for 'milk') interact with the mental representations of neighboring native language words (e.g., laid, last), which overlap in form. Aim 2 considers the connections between the second language word representations (e.g., lait) and their native language translation equivalents (e.g., milk), which overlap in meaning. Both types of words play prominent roles in theoretical models of second language learning and processing; however, their specific roles differ substantially across models. Thus, the field is in need of empirical evidence that will adjudicate between these various models and advance our understanding of how newly learned words are integrated with the native language lexicon. Understanding the neurocognitive mechanisms of second language word learning is a prerequisite to developing evidence-based teaching practices and improving foreign language outcomes among young adult students.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.