Doctoral Dissertation Research: Knowledge and processing of morphosyntactic variation

这个项目研究了两种不同的美国英语方言的语法变化：主流（或“标准”）美国英语（MAE）和非洲裔美国人语言（AAL）。该项目将说两种方言的人与只说MAE的人进行比较，使用多种实验方法来确定参与者对每种方言的语法模式了解多少，以及他们如何利用这些知识来指导即时处理句子。结果将显示不同背景的听众何时以及如何成功地适应方言差异，这可以为减轻在学校和法庭等环境中方言变化的困难提供信息。这个项目测试了一个假设，即人们知道他们经常听到的方言的语法规则，而不管他们是否产生了一种特定的方言。在一个句子评分任务中，参与者先听一些美国主流英语和非裔美国人语言的例子，然后阅读一系列句子，并对每种方言的说话者说出每种话语的可能性进行评分。在每种方言中，条目的语法性各不相同，包括在两种方言中都符合语法的句子，在两种方言中都不符合语法的句子，或者在AAL中符合语法而在MAE中不符合语法的句子。其次，眼球追踪任务测试参与者如何使用给定方言的语法规则来指导他们对句子的即时解释。预计双方言参与者比单方言参与者的影响更强，因为双方言参与者对每种方言都有更多的了解，并且会根据对话者改变他们对语法形式的期望。该项目结合了心理语言学和社会语言学领域的核心问题，展示了语言经验和社会知识如何塑造语言在大脑中的表征以及不同语法系统的实时处理。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 project examines grammatical variation across two different dialects of American English: Mainstream (or "Standard") American English (MAE) and African American Language (AAL). The project compares speakers of both dialects to participants who speak only MAE, using multiple experimental methods to determine what participants know about the grammatical patterns of each dialect and how they use that knowledge to guide moment-to-moment processing of sentences. The results will show when and how listeners with different backgrounds successfully accommodate dialect differences, which can inform efforts to mitigate the difficulty of dialect variation in settings such as schools and courtrooms.This project tests the hypothesis that people know the grammatical rules of dialects they frequently hear, regardless of whether they produce a given dialect. In a sentence rating task, participants listen to examples of Mainstream American English and African American Language, then read a series of sentences and rate how likely a speaker of each dialect would be to say each utterance. Items vary in their grammaticality in each dialect, including sentences that are grammatical in both dialects, ungrammatical in both dialects, or grammatical in AAL but not MAE. Second, an eye-tracking task tests how participants use the grammatical rules of a given dialect to guide their moment-to-moment interpretation of a sentence. Stronger effects are predicted for bidialectal participants than for monodialectal participants, since bidialectal participants have more knowledge of each dialect and shift their expectations of grammatical form depending on their interlocutor. This project unites central questions from the fields of psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics, showing how linguistic experience and social knowledge shape both representations of language in the mind and real-time processing of varying grammatical systems.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.