Conference: Computational and Psycholinguistic Approaches to Second Language Acquisition

语言是人类独有的财产。儿童可以根据他们接受的输入获得一种、两种或多种语言，许多人在他们的一生中继续学习新的语言。语言学是语言研究的学术领域，生成语言学理论是语言研究的一个框架。这一领域的重要研究领域包括语言如何在人类大脑中表现，儿童如何获得这些心理表现，双语或第二语言学习者的不同语言如何相互影响，以及在存在发展障碍的情况下语言习得是如何进行的。除了促进对人类大脑如何运作和学习如何进行的科学理解之外，第二语言习得的研究还对许多其他领域具有实际意义，包括识字发展，外语教学，以及语言障碍的识别和治疗。本次会议汇集了从生成角度研究第二语言习得和双语的知名研究人员和初级学者。会议讨论了第二语言和双语习得如何进行的核心问题，并举行了一次特别会议，重点讨论心理语言学和计算方法方面的进展。特别会议探讨了第二语言学习者和双语者如何处理语言输入和第二语言习得的机制，以及计算模型和工具的最新进展如何打开了新的研究范式和新的见解。行为数据和计算模型的融合使用可以成为促进理论发展的有力工具，有助于解释行为研究结果，并为新的第二语言研究生成假设。会议邀请了四位在双语和第二语言习得语法现象方面有专长的知名研究人员进行演讲，就两位特别会议的演讲者而言，演讲内容包括心理语言学和计算模型。会议鼓励广泛参与：三位受邀演讲者为女性，会议为研究生和博士后学者讲演者提供旅行奖励，会议精选论文以会议纪要形式发表。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的学术价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Language is a unique property of human beings. Children can acquire one, two, or multiple languages depending on the input that they receive, and many people continue to learn new languages throughout their lives. The scholarly field for language study is linguistics, and one linguistic framework is generative linguistic theory. Important areas of study in this domain include how languages are represented in the human mind, how these mental representations are acquired by children, how the different languages of a bilingual or a second language learner influence each other, and how language acquisition proceeds in the presence of developmental disabilities. In addition to advancing a scientific understanding of how the human mind works and how learning proceeds, research on second language acquisition has practical implications for many other fields including literacy development, foreign language instruction, and the identification and treatment of language disorders.This conference brings together established researchers and junior scholars who study second language acquisition and bilingualism from the generative perspective. The conference addresses core questions on how second and bilingual language acquisition proceeds and features a special session focusing on advances in psycholinguistics and computational approaches. The special session examines how second language learners and bilinguals process linguistic input and the mechanisms for second language acquisition, as well as how recent advances in computational modelling and tools have opened new research paradigms and novel insights. The convergent use of behavioral data and computational modeling can be a powerful tool to promote theory development, facilitate the interpretation of behavioral findings, and generate hypotheses for new second language research. The conference features four invited talks by prominent researchers with expertise in bilingual and second language acquisition of grammatical phenomena, and, in the case of the two special session speakers, psycholinguistics and computational modelling. The conference encourages broad participation: three invited speakers are women, the conference provides travel awards to graduate student and post-doctoral scholar presenters, and selected papers from the conference are published in a proceedings volume.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.