Syntactic Regulation and Adaptation in Bidialectal and Heritage Bilingual Speakers

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)和语言学项目的一部分提供的。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。在加州大学欧文分校Julie Washington博士的赞助下，这一博士后奖学金奖项支持一位研究方言变体和传统语言使用者之间的语言和认知处理适应的早期职业科学家。众所周知，儿童的大脑在接触多种语言时是可塑性的，这会对成年人的大脑和语言和认知产生戏剧性的影响。然而，多语种体验的好处最常在说英语和其他欧洲国家语言的双语人士中研究。相比之下，即使是高度流行的少数族裔语言变体的熟练使用者，如美国的非裔美国人英语和受西班牙语影响的英语，也在很大程度上被从与单一方言、单一语言的普通美国英语的使用者相比的角度进行评估。因此，我们对熟练讲多种方言的人如何适应不同的语言经历，以及在方言水平上接触早期语言多样性的儿童是否会在青春期和成年后获得类似双语的好处知之甚少。为了更好地理解熟练的、多方言语言体验的性质和后果，这项研究将测试高能力的成年说话者的阅读行为和相应的大脑活动，这些人说的是受非裔美国人和西班牙语影响的英语。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微型语言群体基于优势的理解，先前的研究使用眼动和脑电反应来索引早期单词获取和对不一致或意想不到的语法元素的预期意义，从而证明了双语和单语书面句子处理的差异。虽然这些语言理解指数被经典地用来描述类似母语的语言的特征，但关于高度熟练的方言和传统语言使用者如何处理语法变异，以及由于早期语言经验的多样性而产生的加工变异如何支持熟练的语言理解，人们知之甚少。为了解决这一差距，拟议的研究将检查非裔美国人英语(AAE)和传统西班牙语使用者对具有方言和传统句法特征的动词形式的眼动和脑电(N400和P600)反应，以及这些反应与童年和同时使用和接触语言的联系。这项研究是首次对两种方言和传统双语使用者在书面句子处理过程中的大脑和行为进行系统的神经语言学调查，并将对新兴知识做出独特贡献，这些知识试图表征语言多样性的不同形式和时间与语言处理和理解的复杂性和相互关系。此外，通过研究两种方言和传统语言的处理，而不是与说一种方言、一种语言的人进行比较，拟议的研究有助于认识到微型化语言形式的价值，以及两种方言和双语者为成功交流而进行的独特的语言和认知适应。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。

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.