Doctoral Dissertation Research: The acquisition of Mandarin by heritage speakers and second language learners

在美国，汉语是第三大使用语言，仅次于英语和西班牙语。随着中国在世界舞台上的知名度越来越高，成年人（青春期后）学习普通话的第二语言的人数也在增加，普通话传统使用者的人数也在增加，这些人从出生起就从父母那里接触到普通话，但成年后英语占主导地位。这个项目将研究第二语言学习者和传统的普通话使用者如何获得普通话的四种不同的语言特性。该项目将通过确定普通话学习者面临的问题领域，并提供有关传统演讲者与传统课堂学习者面临的挑战的信息，对语言教学法产生潜在的影响。鉴于普通话是一种相对欠研究的语言，这个项目将增加我们对这种语言的理解。以往对传统西班牙语的研究发现，传统语言使用者在语音上比第二语言学习者有选择性优势，但在形态句法上没有。本研究的目的是检验这种选择性优势是否适用于普通话，这是英语使用者最难掌握的语言之一。本研究调查，当普通话水平和主导语言（英语）保持不变，早期的收购赋予优势的遗产扬声器第二语言学习者，这是否取决于语言领域（语音，形态语义，句法，句法语义接口）。三个小组（母语者，传统使用者和第二语言学习者）将完成三个心理语言学任务测试四种普通话语言现象：连读变调，体标记，关系从句和长距离反身代词。选择这些是因为（i）它们代表了语言学中的不同子域，（ii）它们在单语儿童的习得年龄方面不同，（iii）英语和汉语在这些现象上不同，这对于教学和语言原因都很重要。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In the US, Chinese is the third most-spoken language, after English and Spanish. As China gains visibility on the world stage, the number of adult (post-puberty) second language learners of Mandarin is growing, as is the number of Mandarin heritage speakers, individuals who were exposed to Mandarin from their parents since birth, but as adults are dominant in English. This project will examine how second language learners and heritage speakers of Mandarin acquire four different linguistic properties of Mandarin. The project will have potential implications for language pedagogy, by identifying problem areas facing learners of Mandarin and providing information about challenges that face heritage speakers vs. traditional classroom learners. Given that Mandarin is a relatively understudied language, this project will increase our understanding of this language. Previous studies on heritage Spanish have found heritage speakers to have a selective advantage over second language learners on phonology but not on morphosyntax. The goal of this study is to examine whether such selective advantages hold for Mandarin, one of the hardest languages for English speakers to acquire. This study investigates whether, when both Mandarin proficiency and the dominant language (English) are held constant, early age of acquisition confers an advantage to heritage speakers over second language learners, and whether this depends on the linguistic domain (phonology, morpho-semantics, syntax, and syntax-semantics interface). Three groups (native speakers, heritage speakers and second language learners) will complete three psycholinguistic tasks testing four Mandarin linguistic phenomena: tone sandhi, aspect marking, relative clauses, and long-distance reflexives. These are chosen because (i) they represent different subdomains in linguistics, (ii) they differ regarding the age of acquisition in monolingual children, and (iii) English and Mandarin differ on these phenomena, which is important for both pedagogical and linguistic reasons. The results will contribute to the fields of Chinese linguistics and language acquisition.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.