Cognitive Processes in Bilinguals

这项研究的目标是将双语作为一种工具来阐明作为记忆和语言之间的接口的基本认知过程。由于双语者通常至少有两个单词对应于任何给定的概念，每个概念在他们的语言中都有一个单词，所以他们选择合适的单词来说话的过程为研究认知系统中的语言产生和竞争提供了一个有用的工具。最近关于双语者理解和产生两种语言单词的方式的研究表明，两种语言在一定程度上都很活跃。那么，双语者是如何在大部分时间里用目标语言说出单词的呢？这项计划中的研究的具体重点是检查当双语者的两种语言活跃时，调节竞争的因素。这些实验有两个目的。一是找出引起跨语言竞争的条件。每个实验都涉及第一语言(L1)、第二语言(L2)或两种语言直接相互竞争的混合条件下的口语产出。这项实验的第二个目的是找出影响每种语言活动的因素。这些因素被假设为包括外部线索，用于指示双语者的两种语言之一，以及内部注意策略，其功能是控制来自非预期语言的激活的后果。这项工作的结果将对双语语言处理的模型产生具体的影响，但也将为理解熟练操作的控制方式提供重要的限制。

The goal of the proposed research is to use the bilingual as a vehicle to illuminate basic cognitive processes that serve as the interface between memory and language. Because bilinguals typically have at least two words available for any given concept, one in each of their languages, the process by which they select the appropriate word to speak provides a useful tool for investigating language production and competition across cognitive systems. Recent research on the way in which bilinguals understand and produce words in their two languages suggests that both languages are always active to some degree. How then do bilinguals manage to speak words in the intended language most of the time? The specific focus of the planned research is to examine the factors that modulate the competition that occurs when the bilingual's two languages are active. The experiments have two aims. One is to identify the conditions that give rise to cross-language competition. Each of the proposed experiments involves spoken language production in the first language (L1), the second language (L2), or under mixed conditions in which the two languages are directly competing with one another. A second aim of the proposed experiments is to identify the factors that modulate the activity of each language. These factors are hypothesized to include external cues that serve to signal one of the bilingual's two languages as well as internal attentional strategies that function to control the consequences of activation from the unintended language. The results of this work will have specific implications for models of bilingual language processing but will also provide important constraints for understanding the way in which skilled performance is controlled.