Syntactic Regulation and Adaptation in Bidialectal and Heritage Bilingual Speakers

该奖项是美国国家科学基金会社会、行为和经济科学（SBE）博士后研究奖学金（SPRF）和语言学项目的一部分。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事业准备有前途的早期职业博士级科学家。SPRF奖励包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行为期两年的培训，并鼓励博士后进行独立研究。美国国家科学基金会寻求促进科学界各阶层的科学家，包括那些未被充分代表的群体的科学家，参与其研究项目和活动；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的一个重要的专业发展阶段。每个博士后必须解决各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在加州大学欧文分校朱莉·华盛顿博士的赞助下，这项博士后奖学金支持一位早期职业科学家研究方言和传统语言的语言和认知加工适应。众所周知，儿童的大脑在接触多种语言时具有可塑性，这对成年人的思维和大脑在语言和认知方面产生了巨大影响。然而，多语言经验的好处在讲英语和其他欧洲国家语言的双语者身上得到了最普遍的研究。相比之下，即使是精通少数语言变体的人，如美国的非裔美国英语和受西班牙语影响的英语，与使用单方言、单语的普通美国英语的人相比，也在很大程度上被从缺陷的角度进行了评估。因此，对于精通多种方言的人如何适应不同的语言体验，以及早期在方言水平上接触语言多样性的儿童是否会在青春期和成年早期获得类似双语的好处，我们知之甚少。为了更好地理解精通、多方言语言体验的本质和后果，本研究将研究阅读行为和相应的大脑活动，这些阅读行为和相应的大脑活动是由高能力的非裔美国人和西班牙人影响的英语成年人进行的。通过展示语言能力和突出多方言使用者的认知优势，该项目将有助于对美国两个最大的少数民族语言社区的基于优势的理解。双语和单语书面句子处理的差异已经在先前的研究中得到证明，该研究使用眼动和脑电图（EEG）反应来索引早期单词访问和对不一致或意外语法元素的意义期望。尽管这些语言理解指标通常被用来描述母语的特征，但对于高度熟练的方言和传统语言使用者如何处理语法变化，以及如何通过早期语言经验多样性产生的处理变化来支持熟练的语言理解，人们知之甚少。为了解决这一问题，本研究将研究眼球运动和脑电图（N400和P600）对非裔美国英语和西班牙语使用者方言和传统语法动词形式的反应，以及这些反应与儿童时期和同期语言使用和接触的关系。这项研究是对双方言和传统双语者在书面句子处理中的大脑和行为进行的第一次系统的神经语言学研究，将对新兴知识做出独特的贡献，这些知识旨在描述语言多样性的复杂性和相互关系，以及语言多样性与语言处理和理解的时间。此外，通过对双方言和传统语言加工本身的研究，而不是将其与单方言、单语英语使用者进行比较，本研究有助于认识到少数语言形式的价值，以及双方言和双语者独特的语言和认知适应对成功沟通的价值。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。

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) and Linguistics programs. 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. Julie Washington at the University of California, Irvine this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist studying linguistic and cognitive processing adaptations among speakers of dialectal varieties and heritage languages. Children’s brains are famously plastic when exposed to multiple languages, with dramatic consequences for the adult mind and brain in language and cognition. However, the benefits of multilingual experience are most commonly studied in bilingual speakers of English and other national European languages. In contrast, even proficient speakers of highly prevalent minoritized language varieties, such as African American English and Spanish-influenced English in the U.S., have largely been evaluated from a deficit perspective in comparison to speakers of monodialectal, monolingual General American English. As a result, we know little about how proficient multidialectal speakers adapt to diverse language experience and whether children who are exposed to early linguistic diversity at the dialect level later accrue bilingual-like benefits in adolescence and young adulthood. To better understand the nature and consequences of proficient, multidialectal language experience, this research will examine reading behaviors and corresponding brain activity with highly competent adult speakers of African American and Spanish influenced English. By demonstrating the linguistic competencies and highlighting the cognitive strengths of multidialectal speakers, this project will contribute to a strengths-based understanding of two of the largest minoritized language communities in the U.S.Differences in bilingual and monolingual written sentence processing have been demonstrated in prior research using eye movement as well as electroencephalographic (EEG) responses to index early word access and expectations for meaning in response to incongruent or unexpected grammatical elements. Although these indices of language understanding have classically been used to characterize native-like language, little is known about how highly proficient dialectal and heritage language speakers process grammatical variation and how skilled language comprehension may be supported by variations in processing that arises from diversity in early language experience. To address this gap, the proposed research will examine eye movements and EEG (N400 and P600) responses to verb forms characteristic of dialectal and heritage syntax in African American English (AAE) and heritage Spanish speakers, as well as the association of these responses with childhood and concurrent language use and exposure. This research is the first systematic neurolinguistic investigation of brain and behavior in written sentence processing by bidialectal and heritage bilingual speakers and will make a unique contribution to emerging knowledge that seeks to characterize the complexity and interrelationship of diverse forms and timing of linguistic diversity with language processing and comprehension. Further, by investigating bidialectal and heritage language processing in their own right rather than in comparison to monodialectal, monolingual English speakers, the proposed research contributes to the recognition of the value of minoritized language forms and of bidialectals’ and bilinguals’ unique linguistic and cognitive adaptations for successful communication.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.