Exploring the Dynamics of Language and Thought in the Multilingual Mind: Effects of Multiple Language Learning

我们所说的语言是否会影响我们的思维方式这一经典问题近年来随着一些新的研究范式重新引起了人们的兴趣。经验证据表明，语言可以对感知、记忆、推理和分类等各种认知过程产生快速、直接或普遍、稳定的影响，其方式灵活且依赖于语境（Slobin, 1996; Whorf, 1956; Wolff & Holmes, 2011）。例如，语言效应在影响基本视觉感知的意义上可能是深刻的（Lupyan, 2012），但对于短期实验操作，如语言启动（Montero-Melis & Bylund, 2016），任务指令的语言（Athanasopoulos等人，2015）或言语干扰（Trueswell & Papafragou, 2010），则是值得尊敬的。尽管来自心理学实验的令人信服的经验证据表明，我们对世界的理解和感知受到特定语言类别的影响，但有关语言思维辩论的几个问题仍未得到解决。首先，所获得的证据主要是通过跨语言比较对单语者或二语学习者进行调查。对说两种以上语言的人的研究仍然非常有限。由于使用多种语言是世界范围内日益普遍的语言现象（Aronin & Singleton, 2012），使用多种语言的人表现出独特的语言和认知特征（Cook & Li, 2016），将语言和思维研究扩展到使用多种语言的领域，为理解额外语言学习的过程和效果提供了新的见解，并具有重要意义。其次，尽管有证据表明，在各种实验操作下，语言效果在很大程度上是情境依赖的和可延展性的（Wang & Li, 2019），但目前尚不清楚这种效果是否在不同的时间、背景和模式中具有长期和持久的影响。正如Sidnell和Enfield（2012）提出的那样，除了实验室实验之外，应该通过检查自然发生的对话及其在情境行动中的附带影响来概述语言思维研究的生态学有效方法。因此，将认知心理学方法与自然主义行为分析相结合具有重要的理论意义和方法论意义。本研究旨在通过考察多语言学习对空间表达和表征的潜在影响，将语言、空间和认知的研究扩展到多语言领域。将采用一种创新的多学科方法，将语言学、实验心理学和自然主义观察结合在一起。具体来说，我们将进行一系列结合在线（反应时间和眼球运动）和离线测量（语言产生和相似性排列）的实验室实验，以评估不同模态下功能性多语言者的心理表征和视觉运动感知。此外，它将进一步研究关于空间表达和空间认知的现实社会互动中的多语言自然行为的实例。本研究旨在将目前关于语言相对论的理论和方法争论扩展到多语领域，并有助于我们理解语言学习与人类认知可塑性之间的动态关系。它将揭示在多语教育中，特定语言的思维方式是否可以用于教学，作为促进语言学习的手段。此外，由于认知模式会影响与不同文化背景的人之间的交际互动，因此本研究可以对促进有效的沟通，特别是不同语言系统的语言学习者与母语者之间的有效沟通，以更好地进行跨文化理解和人际交往具有启示意义。

The classic question of whether the language we speak influences the way we think has received renewed interest in recent years with a number of new research paradigms. Empirical evidence shows that language can exert rapid and immediate or pervasive and stable effects on various cognitive processes, such as perception, memory, reasoning and categorization, in a flexible and context-dependent manner (Slobin, 1996; Whorf, 1956; Wolff & Holmes, 2011). For example, language effects can be profound in the sense of affecting even basic visual perceptions (Lupyan, 2012), and yet venerable to short-term experimental manipulations such as linguistic priming (Montero-Melis & Bylund, 2016), the language of task instructions (Athanasopoulos et al., 2015), or verbal interference (Trueswell & Papafragou, 2010). Despite compelling empirical evidence from psychological experiments that our understanding and perception of the world are affected by language-specific categories, several issues regarding the language-thought debate remain unresolved. First, the evidence obtained is largely based on the investigation of monolingual speakers or L2 learners through cross-linguistic comparisons. Research on speakers of more than two languages remains very limited. As multilingualism is an increasingly common linguistic phenomenon worldwide (Aronin & Singleton, 2012) and multilinguals display unique linguistic and cognitive features (Cook & Li, 2016), extending language and thought research to the domain of multilingualism provides new insights into and has important implications for understanding the processes and effects of additional language learning. Second, although evidence suggests that language effects are largely context-dependent and malleable under various experimental manipulations (Wang & Li, 2019), it is still unclear whether such effects have long-term and lasting consequences across different times, contexts and modalities. As proposed by Sidnell and Enfield (2012), in addition to lab experiments, an ecologically valid approach to language-thought research should be outlined by examining naturally occurring conversations and their collateral effects in situated action. Thus, it is of theoretical and methodological importance to combine cognitive psychological methods with analyses of naturalistic behaviors.The proposed study aims to extend the research on language, space, and cognition to the domain of multilingualism by examining the potential effects of multiple language learning on spatial expressions and representations. An innovative multidisciplinary approach that brings together linguistics, experimental psychology, as well as naturalistic observations, will be used. Specifically, a series of lab-based experiments combining both online (reaction time and eye movements) and off-line measures (language production and similarity arrangement) will be carried out to assess mental representations and visual perceptions of motion in functional multilinguals across different modalities. In addition, it will further examine instances of multilingual natural behaviors in real-life social interactions with regard to spatial expressions and spatial cognition. This study aims to extend the current theoretical and methodological debates over Linguistic Relativity to the domain of multilingualism and contribute to our understanding of the dynamics between language learning and the malleability of human cognition. It will shed light on whether language-specific ways of thinking can be used in teaching as a means to facilitate language learning in multilingual education. In addition, as cognitive patterns may influence communicative interaction with people from different cultural backgrounds, this study can have implications for promoting effective communication, especially between language learners and native speakers with different linguistic systems, for a better cross-cultural understanding and interpersonal social interaction.