Language development in Mandarin-speaking heritage children: comprehension and production of anaphoric subject pronouns

不同语言在指称手段的使用上存在差异，例如，他/她等人称代词指代语篇实体。在某些语言中，如英语，指代已经提到的实体时需要使用显性代词（除了少数明显的例外），而在意大利语等语言中，代词可以省略。因此，英语被称为非空主语语言（NNS），因为主语代词不能省略，而意大利语被认为是空主语语言（NS）。代词的解释和产生方式会随着年龄（例如，儿童与成人）和接触环境（单语者与双语者）的变化而变化。迄今为止的研究主要是研究神经网络-神经网络语言组合（Sorace and Filiaci, 2006; Sorace et al., 2009）。一个普遍的发现是，双语者更倾向于选择显性代词。这被解释为神经网络语言（如英语）对神经网络语言（如意大利语）的影响，并在文献中被称为跨语言影响（CLI） （Serratrice， Sorace和Paoli， 2004）。双语者对显性代词的偏好也归因于默认的双语认知策略，而不是特定的语言对（Sorace, 2016）。到目前为止，还没有研究调查在汉语普通话（以下简称普通话）等语言的双语环境中，代词是如何被解释的（参见自己的硕士论文）。传统上，普通话被创造为一种主题删除语言（Yi, 2019），这意味着代词可以删除的条件与NNS和NS语言不同（见s2）。本研究旨在探讨中英双语华裔儿童汉语代词的产生和翻译。为了了解普通话中的代词是否也受到来自英语的CLI的影响，我将比较生活在英国的讲普通话的传统儿童和居住在中国的单语儿童。与单语儿童（MC）类似，chs从出生起就将普通话作为第一语言，但也在家庭和学校中接受了大量的英语输入（Montrul, 2015）。因此，他们对汉语主语代词的习得可能受到英语的影响。随着句子的展开，我将使用精确到毫秒的微妙技巧来研究对代词的理解。为了检验对发育的影响，我将把MC与成人进行比较。

Languages differ in their use of referential devices, e.g., personal pronouns such as he/she, to refer to discourse entities. In some languages, like in English, overt pronouns need to be used when referring to an entity already mentioned (apart from few marked exceptions), whereas in languages such as Italian, pronouns can be dropped. For that reason, English is called a non-null subject language (NNS), because subject pronouns cannot be dropped, whereas Italian is considered a null subject language (NS). How pronouns are interpreted and produced can change as a function of age (e.g., children vs adults) and exposure (monolinguals vs. bilinguals). Research to date has primarily examined NNS-NS language combinations (Sorace and Filiaci, 2006; Sorace et al., 2009). A common finding is that bilinguals are more likely to opt for the overt pronoun. This has been interpreted as influence from the NNS language (e.g., English) on the NS language (e.g., Italian), and has been coined in the literature as Crosslinguistic influence (CLI) (Serratrice, Sorace and Paoli, 2004). Bilingual speakers' preference for overt pronouns has also been attributed to a default bilingual cognitive strategy and not with specific language pairs (Sorace, 2016). No studies to date have examined how pronouns are interpreted in bilingual contexts in languages like Mandarin Chinese (henceforth Mandarin) (but see own MSc dissertation). Mandarin has traditionally been coined a topic-drop language (Yi, 2019), which means that the conditions under which pronouns can be dropped differ from both NNS and NS languages (see s2). The present study will investigate how Mandarin pronouns are produced and interpreted in Mandarin-English bilingual children of Chinese heritage (CHSs). To understand whether pronouns in Mandarin are also affected by CLI from English, I will compare Mandarin-speaking heritage children living in the UK with monolingual children residing in China. Similar to monolingual children (MC), the CHSs acquired Mandarin as their first language from birth but also received a significant amount of English input in families and schools (Montrul, 2015). Thus, their acquisition of subject pronouns in Mandarin might be influenced by English. I will investigate comprehension of pronouns using subtle techniques with millisecond precision as the sentence unfolds. To examine developmental effects, I will compare MC to adults.