Variability in Language Processing: Adapting to Non-Native Speakers

国家接待了许多母语不是当地语言的工人。来自不同国际背景的学生用非母语上课。商务人士在全球旅行、拓展市场和合作时，通常会使用一门外语。本研究的目的是调查人们是如何理解非母语人士的，并研究母语人士和非母语人士之间交流的含义。研究人员将测试人们在试图理解非母语者和母语者时是否使用不同的策略。例如，当人们听懂非母语人士说的话时，他们会更少地关注他们实际说了什么，而更多地关注交流的环境。这涉及到人们对谈话内容的记忆程度，他们达成一致的可能性，以及他们如何理解说话人的动机和意图。这个研究项目将关注人们在交流时自然使用的心理机制。它可能会导致在各种领域的发现，具有重要的人际关系和社会意义。例如，在教育方面，它可以帮助解释非英语母语者在学校面临的困难，或者非英语母语教师遇到的困难；在法律领域，它可以帮助我们了解非本国证人的证词是如何被理解和误解的；在医学领域，当医生和病人之间，或者医生之间，当其中一位不是母语人士时，它应该对有效的沟通有影响。总的来说，了解人们如何相互理解可以通过改善沟通和减少不同母语者之间的冲突，为社会做出重要贡献。本研究由SBE/BCS和国际科学与工程办公室共同资助

Countries host many workers who are non-native speakers of the local language. Students from diverse international backgrounds attend class in a non-native tongue. Business people commonly use a foreign language as they travel around the globe, expanding their markets and collaborations. The goal of this research is to investigate how people understand non-native speakers and to examine the implications for communication between native and non-native speakers. The investigators will test whether people use different strategies when trying to understand a non-native speaker than a native speaker. For example, when people understand non-native speakers they pay less attention to what is actually said, and more attention to the situation surrounding the communication. This has implications for how well people remember what is said, how likely they are to reach an agreement, and how they perceive the speaker's motives and intentions.This research project will focus on the psychological mechanisms that people naturally use when they communicate. It could lead to discoveries in a wide variety of domains with important interpersonal and societal implications. For instance, in education it could help account for difficulties faced by non-native English speakers in school, or difficulties that non-native teachers encounter; in the legal domain it may provide insight into how the testimony of non-native witnesses is understood and misunderstood; in the medical domain it should have implications for effective communication between physicians and patients, or among physicians, when one of them is a non-native speaker of the language. In general, insight into how people understand each other could provide critical contributions to society by improving communication and reducing conflict between speakers with different native tongues.This work is co-funded by SBE/BCS and the Office of International Science and Engineering