Doctoral Dissertation Research: Linguistic and visual cue competition in novel L2 structure learning and thematic role assignment

这个项目研究了美国英语使用者如何在不同的语境条件下（有辅助图像或翻译）学习一种区分大小写的、灵活的语序语言作为第二语言。它将学习者阅读句子时对新语言的实时处理与学习结果联系起来。学习结构与英语不同的语言给学习者带来了很大的困难。本项目探讨了这种已证实的困难的起源，以及视觉信息（图像）如何引导学习者的注意力，帮助他们注意和理解新的语法结构。它考虑了学习环境对语法学习的作用，并可以说明语言输入如何更好地与非语言的、多模态的上下文支持相结合。它可以指导教育工作者和政策制定者开发教育软件和游戏设计，以及在线语言学习。它可以为美国成年学习者设计成功的语言课程提供信息。这些研究包括语言学习和随后的测试阶段。在学习阶段，自定节奏阅读和眼球追踪将显示学习者在阅读第二语言句子时将注意力分配到哪里，以及对句子不同部分的注意力是如何被上下文支持类型（图像或翻译）调节的。目的是研究语言和视觉信息如何相互作用并争夺学习者的注意力。假设是，当学习者将他们的句子解释与视觉信息进行比较时，视觉场景可以使语法的某些方面“突出”。在测试阶段，将有多种方法来评估参与者理解和产生新语法结构的能力。这些研究可以显示多模态输入如何影响学习者在实时句子阅读过程中的注意力焦点，以及这种加工如何影响学习者的学习。这将促进我们对学习第二语言时大脑如何处理和整合语言和视觉信息的理解，这在教育方面具有明显的应用，特别是在在线和多媒体语言学习中。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

This project examines how American English speakers learn a case-marking, flexible word-order language as a second language under different context conditions (with supporting images or translations). It links the real time processing of the new language, as learners read sentences, to the learning outcomes. Learning languages whose structures are different from English poses great difficulty for learners. This project examines the origins of this attested difficulty, and how visual information (images) can guide learners’ attention and help them notice and understand new grammatical structures. It considers the role of the learning environment for grammar learning and can illustrate the way language input is better integrated with non-linguistic, multimodal contextual support. It can guide educators and policy makers in the development of educational software and game design, and online language learning. It can inform the design of successful language programs for U.S. adult learner populations.The studies include a language learning and a subsequent testing phase. During the learning phase, self-paced reading and eye-tracking will show where learners allocate their attention as they read second language sentences, and how attention to different parts of the sentence is modulated by the type of contextual support (images or translations). The goal is to examine how linguistic and visual information interact and compete for learners’ attention. The hypothesis is that visual scenes can make some aspects of grammar ‘stand out’ as learners compare their sentence interpretation to the visual information. During the testing phase, multiple measures will assess participants’ ability to comprehend and produce the new grammatical structure. These studies can show how multimodal input influences the focus of learners’ attention during real-time sentence reading and how this processing affects their learning. This will advance our understanding of how the mind processes and integrates linguistic and visual information when learning a second language, which has clear educational applications especially in online and multimedia language learning.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.