Syntactic Regulation and Adaptation in Bidialectal and Heritage Bilingual Speakers

双语和传统双语使用者的句法调节和适应

• 批准号: 2204272
• 负责人: Sibylla Leon Guerrero
• 金额: $ 13.8万
• 依托单位: Leon Guerrero, Sibylla
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-07-01 至 2024-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2204272&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Syntactic; Regulation; Adaptation; Bidialectal; Heritage

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.

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）和语言学计划的一部分提供的。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界，工业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的奖励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。NSF致力于促进来自科学界各部门的科学家，包括来自代表性不足的群体的科学家参与其研究计划和活动;博士后期间被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的重要水平。每个博士后研究员必须解决推进各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在加州大学欧文分校的朱莉华盛顿博士的赞助下，该博士后奖学金支持早期职业科学家研究方言变体和传统语言的发言者之间的语言和认知处理适应。当接触多种语言时，儿童的大脑具有众所周知的可塑性，这对成年人的语言和认知能力产生了巨大的影响。然而，多语言经验的好处最常在英语和其他欧洲国家语言的双语者中进行研究。相比之下，即使是精通非常流行的少数民族语言变体的人，如非洲裔美国人英语和受西班牙语影响的美国英语，在很大程度上是从赤字的角度进行评估相比，发言者的monodialectal，单语通用美国英语。因此，我们对精通多种方言的人如何适应不同的语言经验知之甚少，也不知道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早期获得类似双语的好处。为了更好地理解熟练的多方言语言体验的性质和后果，本研究将检查阅读行为和相应的大脑活动与非洲裔美国人和西班牙语影响英语的高度胜任的成年人发言。通过展示语言能力和突出多方言说话者的认知优势，该项目将有助于对美国两个最大的少数民族语言社区进行基于优势的理解。双语和单语书面句子处理的差异已经在先前的研究中使用眼球运动和脑电图（EEG）进行了证明对索引早期词访问的反应和对不一致或意外语法元素的意义的期望。虽然这些语言理解的指标已被经典地用来表征母语，很少有人知道如何高度熟练的方言和遗产语言的扬声器处理语法变化，以及如何熟练的语言理解可能会支持的变化，在处理过程中产生的多样性，在早期的语言经验。为了解决这一差距，拟议的研究将检查眼球运动和脑电图（N400和P600）的反应，动词形式的方言和遗产句法的非洲裔美国人英语（AAE）和遗产西班牙语的发言者，以及这些反应与儿童和并发语言使用和暴露的关联。这项研究是第一个系统的神经语言学调查的大脑和行为的书面句子处理的双方言和遗产双语扬声器，并将作出独特的贡献，新兴的知识，寻求表征的复杂性和相互关系的不同形式和时间的语言多样性与语言处理和理解。此外，通过调查双方言和传统语言处理本身，而不是与单方言，单语英语发言者相比，该研究计划有助于认识少数民族语言形式的价值，以及双语者和双语者为成功交流而进行的独特的语言和认知适应。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过评估予以支持使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。