Navigating two languages: Effects of everyday language switching on bilingual infants and toddlers

项目摘要 美国和世界各地的许多婴儿在双语环境中长大，他们的经历 是由看护者在两种语言之间的动态切换来定义的。与普遍的看法相反，只有一个很小的 少数双语儿童在严格的"一人一语"环境中成长。相反，大多数 双语儿童经常从同一个人那里听到两种语言，在同一个对话中，而且经常 在同一个句子中（例如，“看那个混蛋!”）。关于年轻的双语者是如何通过 语言之间固有的交替我们的主要目标是了解双语婴儿和 蹒跚学步的孩子在每天的句子、对话和对话中学习两种语言。 人基于我们之前NICHD资助的R03的发现，我们将检验总体假设 双语环境中的语言转换是双语婴儿语言学习的关键因素， 语言成果。拟议的国际，跨实验室项目将测试相同的西班牙语，英语和 12个月、24个月和36个月的法语-英语双语儿童，使用补充行为， 家庭，和纵向措施的年轻双语者的学习从语言转换。目标1将使用 眼动追踪和瞳孔测量实验，以研究双语婴儿和幼儿如何处理和学习 从跨句子的语言切换（Exps. 1 - 2），conversations（Exps. 3 - 4），和人（实验。第5 - 6段）。目的 2（实验）7)将使用家庭语言的多日录音来调查语言是否以及如何 在家里转换塑造了早期的语言处理，并对语言和认知做出了独特的贡献。 结果。拟议的实验将同时进行两个不同的双语人口： 新泽西的西班牙语和英语双语者，蒙特利尔的法语和英语双语者。基于相交 社会语言学，人口统计学和这些社区之间的经验差异，这种方法将 解决双语研究中普遍性的关键难题，即，无论调查结果是针对一个 或者说，他们是否能得出一般性的结论。总之，拟议的研究将阐明 语言发展的一个重要的现实挑战：双语婴儿和幼儿如何处理熟悉的 从复杂的双语输入中学习新单词，无论是从时刻到时刻， 骨料研究结果将使我们能够（a）产生一个新的和全面的理论模型， 婴儿和幼儿出现双语现象，以及（B）制定和传播循证指南 培养早期双语能力双语父母几乎总是认为一些双语环境 比其他人更好，而且-像教育工作者，儿科医生和语言病理学家一样-他们努力 优化儿童的双语学习，最大限度地减少语言延迟的风险。我们互补的 双语输入和学习的动态措施可能会导致更好的方式来支持婴儿的， 幼儿掌握双语的途径。

PROJECT SUMMARY Many infants in the United States and around the world grow up in bilingual environments, and their experience is defined by caregivers' dynamic switching between two languages. Contrary to popular belief, only a tiny minority of bilingual children grow up in a strict “one-person-one-language” environment. Instead, most bilingual children regularly hear two languages from the same person, within the same conversation, and often within the same sentence (e.g., “Look at the perro!”). Little is known about how young bilinguals learn through the inherent alternations between languages. Our primary goal is to understand how bilingual infants and toddlers learn two languages in the context of everyday switching across sentences, conversations, and people. Based on findings from our previous NICHD-funded R03, we will test the overarching hypothesis that language switching in bilingual environments is a key contributor to bilingual infants' language learning and language outcomes. The proposed international, cross-lab project will test the same Spanish-English and French-English bilingual children at 12, 24, and 36 months of age, using complementary behavioral, household, and longitudinal measures of young bilinguals' learning from language switches. Aim 1 will use eye-tracking and pupillometry experiments to investigate how bilingual infants and toddlers process and learn from language switching across sentences (Exps. 1-2), conversations (Exps. 3-4), and people (Exps. 5-6). Aim 2 (Exp. 7) will use multi-day recordings of household language to investigate whether and how language switching at home shapes early language processing and contributes uniquely to language and cognitive outcomes. The proposed experiments will be conducted simultaneously with two distinct bilingual populations: Spanish-English bilinguals in New Jersey, and French-English bilinguals in Montréal. Based on intersecting sociolinguistic, demographic, and experiential differences between these communities, this approach will address the crucial puzzle of generalizability in bilingualism research, i.e., whether findings are specific to one population or whether they warrant generalized conclusions. In summary, the proposed studies will illuminate an important, real-life challenge for language development: how bilingual infants and toddlers process familiar words and learn new words from the complexities of dual-language input, both from moment to moment and in aggregate. Findings will enable us to (a) generate a novel and comprehensive theoretical model of the emergence of bilingualism in infants and toddlers, and (b) create and disseminate evidence-based guidelines for fostering early bilingualism. Bilingual parents almost invariably assume that some bilingual environments are better than others, and – like educators, pediatricians, and speech-language pathologists – they strive to optimize children's dual-language learning and minimize the risk of language delays. Our complementary measures of the dynamics of bilingual input and learning may lead to better ways of supporting infants' and toddlers' pathways to bilingual proficiency.