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Doctoral Dissertation Research: The acquisition of Mandarin by heritage speakers and second language learners

博士论文研究：传统语言使用者和第二语言学习者对普通话的习得

基本信息

批准号：
1844447
负责人：
Tania Ionin
金额：
$ 1.9万
依托单位：
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2019
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2019-03-01 至 2022-02-28
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1844447&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Doctoral Dissertation Research acquisition Mandarin

项目摘要

In the US, Chinese is the third most-spoken language, after English and Spanish. As China gains visibility on the world stage, the number of adult (post-puberty) second language learners of Mandarin is growing, as is the number of Mandarin heritage speakers, individuals who were exposed to Mandarin from their parents since birth, but as adults are dominant in English. This project will examine how second language learners and heritage speakers of Mandarin acquire four different linguistic properties of Mandarin. The project will have potential implications for language pedagogy, by identifying problem areas facing learners of Mandarin and providing information about challenges that face heritage speakers vs. traditional classroom learners. Given that Mandarin is a relatively understudied language, this project will increase our understanding of this language. Previous studies on heritage Spanish have found heritage speakers to have a selective advantage over second language learners on phonology but not on morphosyntax. The goal of this study is to examine whether such selective advantages hold for Mandarin, one of the hardest languages for English speakers to acquire. This study investigates whether, when both Mandarin proficiency and the dominant language (English) are held constant, early age of acquisition confers an advantage to heritage speakers over second language learners, and whether this depends on the linguistic domain (phonology, morpho-semantics, syntax, and syntax-semantics interface). Three groups (native speakers, heritage speakers and second language learners) will complete three psycholinguistic tasks testing four Mandarin linguistic phenomena: tone sandhi, aspect marking, relative clauses, and long-distance reflexives. These are chosen because (i) they represent different subdomains in linguistics, (ii) they differ regarding the age of acquisition in monolingual children, and (iii) English and Mandarin differ on these phenomena, which is important for both pedagogical and linguistic reasons. The results will contribute to the fields of Chinese linguistics and language acquisition.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.

在美国，汉语是第三大最常用语言，仅次于英语和西班牙语。随着中国在世界舞台上的知名度增加，成年(青春期后)学习普通话的人数正在增加，说普通话的人也在增加，他们从出生起就接触到父母的普通话，但成年后英语占主导地位。这个项目将考察第二语言学习者和传统普通话使用者如何获得普通话的四种不同的语言特性。该项目将通过识别普通话学习者面临的问题领域，并提供传统说话者与传统课堂学习者面临的挑战的信息，对语言教育学产生潜在影响。鉴于普通话是一种相对较少被研究的语言，这个项目将增加我们对这门语言的理解。此前对传统西班牙语的研究发现，与第二语言学习者相比，说传统西班牙语的人在音韵学上具有选择性优势，但在形态句法上却没有。这项研究的目的是考察这种选择性优势是否适用于说英语的人最难掌握的语言之一--普通话。本研究调查了在汉语水平和主要语言(英语)都保持不变的情况下，早期习得是否会使习得者比第二语言学习者更具优势，以及这是否取决于语言领域(语音、形态语义、句法和句法语义接口)。三个小组(母语人士、传统语言使用者和第二语言学习者)将完成三项心理语言学任务，测试四种普通话语言现象：变调、体标记、关系从句和长距离反身代词。之所以选择它们，是因为(I)它们代表了语言学中的不同子域，(Ii)它们在单语儿童的习得年龄上存在差异，以及(Iii)英语和普通话在这些现象上存在差异，这一点在教学和语言方面都很重要。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。