Doctoral Dissertation Research: Using ERPs to Track the Scope of Inhibition in Bilingual Speech

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Rhonda McClain女士将在Judith Kroll博士和Eleonora Rossi博士的指导下为她的博士论文收集数据。作为一个后期学习者，流利地说第二语言是一项众所周知的困难技能，大概是因为第二语言与母语竞争选择。目前的研究表明，双语者即使只说一种语言，也会经历两种语言的持续激活。一个关键的问题是，双语者在试图说第二语言时，是如何阻止说更占主导地位的语言或母语的。最近的研究表明，为了用第二语言说话，母语会受到抑制或抑制。然而，很少有人知道什么类型的信息成为抑制在母语。一种可能性是一种语言中的所有单词都被抑制。另一种情况是，在意义上彼此相似的单词网络一起变得活跃或被抑制。另一种可能性是，用另一种语言说的特定单词被抑制了。也不清楚抑制是短暂的还是持久的。计划的实验将测试抑制的范围（抑制的是什么），其时间过程（抑制的持续时间），通过使用电生理措施，可以提供一个更敏感的指数的最早时刻的讲话规划。双语者和单语者的比较也将确定是否反复要求双语者抑制他们的母语或更占主导地位的语言，相对于单语者，在抑制控制领域的专业知识。它将提供关于使用多种语文的重要基础知识，为社会中的教育问题提供信息，在这个社会中，许多学习者面临着在童年最早阶段之后学习第二语言的任务，如果不迅速掌握第二语言，他们就有可能学习失败。的抑制过程，是计划的调查的目标举行的影响，更好地了解双语者的能力，以保持两种语言的条件下，可能只支持使用一种语言。这项研究还将有助于培训一个日益多样化的语言科学家群体，包括本科研究生谁是双语。

With National Science Foundation support, Ms. Rhonda McClain will collect data for her doctoral dissertation under the direction of Dr. Judith Kroll and Dr. Eleonora Rossi. Speaking fluently in a second language is a notoriously difficult skill to develop as a late learner, presumably because the second language competes for selection with the native language. Current research demonstrates that bilinguals experience persistent activation of both languages even when speaking one language alone. A critical question is how bilinguals prevent speaking the more dominant or native language when trying to speak the second language. Recent studies have reported that the native language becomes inhibited, or suppressed, in order to speak in the second language. However, little is known about what type of information becomes inhibited in the native language. One possibility is that all of the words in one language are suppressed. Alternatively, a network of words that bear resemblance in meaning to each other become active or inhibited together. Another possibility is that specific words that had been spoken in the other language are inhibited. It is also unclear whether inhibition is momentary or long lasting. The planned experiments will test the scope of inhibition (what is inhibited) its time course (the duration of inhibition) by using electrophysiological measures that may provide a more sensitive index of the earliest moments of speech planning. A comparison of bilinguals and monolinguals will also determine whether the repeated requirement for bilinguals to inhibit their native or more dominant language confers expertise in the realm of inhibitory control relative to monolingual speakers.The funded research has a number of broader implications. It will contribute important foundational knowledge about multilingualism that will inform educational issues in a society in which many learners are faced with the task of acquiring a second language past the earliest stages of childhood and at risk for academic failure unless they acquire the second language rapidly. The inhibitory processes that are the target of the planned investigation hold implications for better understanding the ability of bilinguals to maintain the two languages under conditions that may support the use of only one language. The research will also contribute to the training of an increasingly diverse group of language scientists by including undergraduate research students who are themselves bilingual.