Language acquisition and joint attention

该奖项是作为NSF的社会、行为和经济科学(SBE)博士后研究奖学金(SPRF)计划和SBE的记录濒危语言计划的一部分提供的。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学职业生涯培养有前途的、早期职业博士水平的科学家。SPRF奖项包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行两年的培训，并鼓励博士后研究员进行独立研究。国家科学基金会致力于促进科学界所有阶层的科学家参与其研究方案和活动，包括那些来自代表性不足的群体的科学家；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的一个重要水平。每个博士后研究员都必须解决推动各自学科领域向前发展的重要科学问题。在德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的Patience Epps博士的赞助下，这个博士后奖学金奖项支持一位早期职业科学家，研究幼儿如何发展引导他人注意力的能力。虽然美国儿童学习英语的共同注意行为的发展是众所周知的，但在其他文化中的联合注意发展几乎没有研究。这一差距留下了一个关键问题没有得到回答：儿童是从成年人那里学来的共同注意行为，还是与生俱来的？成年人的联合注意行为，如指向和使用“这”和“那”等指示词，在不同的文化中有很大的差异。如果儿童的共同注意行为是学习的，他们应该反映这种多样性。如果它们是与生俱来的，那么它们应该是一致的，即使是生活在截然不同文化中的孩子之间也是如此。研究人员将通过对提库纳族儿童的语言和联合注意力发展的全面研究来检验这些相互矛盾的理论预测。研究小组将结合观察和实验方法，包括(1)收集用可穿戴设备制作的儿童一天的音频记录；(2)收集儿童之间以任务为导向的交流和儿童与照顾者互动的视频记录；以及(3)进行眼球跟踪实验。通过对这些数据的分析，该项目将直接转化土著社区的语言发展知识--通过编写儿童获得提库纳的文件和分析，并在学科层面上--创造将第一语言习得研究纳入一般语言文件项目的新方法。研究人员还预计会对教育产生更广泛的影响。在NSF资助的其他研究中，美国语言复兴实践者发现迫切需要研究土著环境下的第一语言习得。因此，该项目的结果可能会为旨在培养美国本土语言的新的第一语言使用者的项目的设计和评估提供参考。该奖项反映了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。

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program and SBE's Documenting Endangered Languages program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Patience Epps at the University of Texas at Austin, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist studying how young children develop the ability to direct others' attention. While the development of joint attention behaviors in U.S. children learning English is well understood, joint attention development in other cultures has gone almost unstudied. This gap leaves a key question unanswered: do children learn joint attention behaviors from adults, or are they innate? Adult joint attention behaviors, such as pointing and use of demonstrative words like "this" and "that", vary massively across cultures. If children's joint attention behaviors are learned, they should reflect this diversity. If they are innate, they should be uniform, even between children living in radically different cultures. The researchers will test these competing theoretical predictions through a comprehensive study of language and joint attention development in children who belong to the Ticuna ethnic group. The research team will combine observational and experimental methods, including (1) collecting daylong audio recordings of children, made with wearable devices; (2) gathering video recordings of task-oriented communication between children and of child-caregiver interaction; and (3) conducting eye-tracking experiments. Through analyses of this data, the project will transform knowledge of language development in indigenous communities both directly, by producing documentation and analysis of children's acquisition of Ticuna, and at a disciplinary level, by creating new methods for integrating first language acquisition research into general language documentation projects. The researchers also anticipate broader impacts in education. In other NSF-funded research, U.S. language revitalization practitioners have identified an urgent need for studies of first language acquisition in indigenous settings. Results of this project may therefore inform the design and evaluation of programs which aim to create new first language speakers of Native American languages in the U.S.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.