Word recognition processes in monolingual and bilingual readers

良好的读写能力对充分参与知识型经济至关重要。我的研究项目的长期目标是了解单语者和双语者在理解书面文字时所涉及的心理表征和过程，这些是如何随着阅读技能的提高而变化的，以及为什么有些孩子在学习阅读方面有困难。这项工作将有助于语言处理认知理论的发展和对阅读障碍的理解。我研究的一个重点是涉及到的心理表征和过程派生的声音（音韵）和印刷文字的意义。语音处理对于理解至关重要，因为越来越清楚的是，它在学习阅读和熟练的无声阅读中都起着重要作用。提出的研究将探讨读者如何推导多音节词的语音表征。尽管这些单词构成了我们阅读的大部分单词，但迄今为止，大多数研究都只使用了单音节单词。我研究的另一个重点是双语者如何表达和处理他们的两种语言。加拿大和世界其他地方的许多人都说不止一种语言，但大多数心理语言学研究都是针对单语者进行的。因此，双语词识别理论不如那些专注于一种语言阅读的理论发展得好。该研究提出的一个关键问题是，双语者是否可以选择性地激活其中一种语言中的单词，还是对语言的激活是非选择性的。总之，提出的研究计划将促进我们对书面文字理解中涉及的心理表征和过程的理解。该工作将有助于理论模型的发展，将研究扩展到多音节词和双语读者。此外，关于语音加工和双语语言之间相互作用的研究解决了学习阅读有困难的儿童关注的两个领域。

Good literacy skills are essential for full participation in our knowledge-based economy. The long-term goal of my research program is to understand the mental representations and processes involved in the comprehension of written words by both monolinguals and bilinguals, how these change with increasing reading skill, and why some children have difficulty learning to read. The work will contribute both to the development of cognitive theories of language processing and to an understanding of reading disorders.   One focus of my research is on the mental representations and processes involved in deriving the sounds (phonology) and meanings of printed words. Phonological processing is critical to understand because it is becoming increasingly clear that it plays an important role both in learning to read and in skilled silent reading for meaning. The proposed studies will investigate how readers derive the phonological representations of multisyllabic words. Although these words make up the majority of the words that we read, most research to date has used only monosyllabic words. Another focus of my research concerns how bilinguals represent and process their two languages. Many individuals in Canada and in the rest of the world speak more than one language, yet most psycholinguistic research has been conducted on monolinguals. Consequently, theories of bilingual word recognition are less well developed than those that focus on reading in one language. A key question addressed in this proposal is whether bilinguals can selectively activate words in just one of their languages or whether activation is nonselective for language.   In summary, the proposed research program will advance our understanding of the mental representations and processes involved in the comprehension of written words. The work will contribute to the advancement of theoretical models by extending research to multisyllabic words and to bilingual readers. Furthermore, research on phonological processing and on interactions between a bilingual's languages addresses two areas of concern for children who are having difficulties in learning to read.