Doctoral Dissertation Research: Learning and processing mechanisms for singular they/them pronouns

博士论文研究：单数they/them代词的学习和处理机制

• 批准号: 2214299
• 负责人: Sarah Brown-Schmidt
• 金额: $ 1.41万
• 依托单位: Vanderbilt University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-01 至 2025-01-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2214299&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Learning; processing

The use of the pronoun “they” instead of singular “he” or “she” to refer to a lone individual has met with mixed acceptance for a variety of purposes and can be challenging for some listeners and speakers despite the fact that, historically, singular-they is well entrenched in the language. For example, many people who don't intend to misgender others still make errors in their actual language production. Errors are particularly common with singular they, which is becoming more common and more accepted (46% of younger Americans in 2021 know someone who uses they/them pronouns, up from 32% in 2018), but is still new to many speakers. This project asks why errors like these occur, and tests learning strategies and speech production outcomes.This project draws on sentence processing, speech production, perspective-taking, and error-based learning approaches to ask novel questions about mechanisms of language learning and production. Building on promising preliminary data, the proposed experiments investigate how difficulties with singular they arise during language processing, how choices between alternative pronouns are affected by context, and what strategies support learning to remember people’s stated pronouns and fluently produce singular they. De-identified data and code will be made publicly available, along with study pre-registrations. In addition to informing evidence-based best practices for reducing misgendering, the findings of the proposed studies will advance understanding of language learning and speech production.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.

用代词“they”代替单数“he”或“she”来指代孤独的个体，在各种各样的目的中得到了不同的接受，这对一些听众和说话者来说可能是一种挑战，尽管从历史上看，单数“they”在英语中根深蒂固。例如，许多不打算误解他人性别的人在实际的语言表达中仍然会犯错误。单数they的错误尤其常见，这种情况越来越普遍，也越来越被接受（2021年，46%的美国年轻人认识使用they/them代词的人，高于2018年的32%），但对许多人来说仍然是新的。这个项目询问为什么会发生这样的错误，并测试学习策略和语音生成结果。该项目利用句子处理、语音生成、换位思考和基于错误的学习方法来提出关于语言学习和生成机制的新问题。在有希望的初步数据的基础上，拟议的实验研究了在语言处理过程中，单数they是如何产生困难的，不同代词之间的选择是如何受到语境的影响的，以及什么样的策略有助于学习记住人们的陈述代词并流利地产生单数they。去识别的数据和代码将与研究预注册一起公开提供。除了为减少性别误解提供基于证据的最佳实践外，拟议研究的结果还将促进对语言学习和语音生成的理解。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。