Mechanisms underlying the impact of dialect mismatch on spoken language comprehension

项目总结/摘要 口语理解需要语言信息和交际信息的整合 意图和社会文化信息（说话者身份）。这个过程通常相对容易，但可以 被语音信号中的可变性破坏（例如，背景噪声）和社会文化差异（例如， 演讲者竞赛）。正是这些类型的中断的特点所面临的挑战的学生谁发言 非裔美国人英语（AAE）在家里，但必须理解通用美国英语（GAE）在学校。 在家里说AAE的学生会遇到方言不匹配， AAE和教学方言，几乎总是GAE。方言不匹配已被证明是 负面影响口语理解，但这种关系的基础机制仍然存在 不清楚这些后果传统上被解释为信号退化，其中 知觉分析更困难（知觉成本假设）。然而，口语 理解不仅仅是感性的分析。另一种解释是认知信任假说 认为方言失配对口语理解的影响也来自社会文化因素 会话伙伴之间的差异。本研究的主要目的是评价 认知信任假说的一部分 使用视觉世界范式，方言不匹配和群体成员身份对 对字面意义和预期意义的理解将在7至9岁的儿童学习AAE或 GAE为了评估方言不匹配对口语理解的影响，儿童将听到 用熟悉或不熟悉的英语方言写句子。为了评估认知信任的作用，句子将 与不同种族的演讲者的视觉图像配对，以传达组内或组外成员身份。目的 1考察了方言和群体成员对语义预测的影响。目标2检查 方言和群体成员关系对儿童语用推理能力的影响，特别是对等级含义的影响。 总的来说，这两项研究创新性地回答了方言失配如何影响 口语理解传统的解释集中在感性成本上，这导致了 发展方言转换课程。然而，口语理解不仅仅是感性的， 分析，并要求整合说话人的意图，这可能是很难做到的，当有方言和 社会文化差异。这些研究直接验证了认知信任假说的有效性。如果这 假设是支持的，那么这将表明，课程，也考虑认知信任可能更好 适合解决与方言不匹配相关的教育后果。

Project Summary/Abstract Spoken language comprehension requires the integration of linguistic information with communicative intent and sociocultural information (speaker identity). This process usually unfolds with relative ease but can be disrupted by variability in the speech signal (e.g., background noise) and sociocultural differences (e.g., speaker race). It is these kinds of disruptions that characterize the challenges faced by students who speak African American English (AAE) at home, but have to comprehend General American English (GAE) at school. Students who speak AAE at home experience dialect mismatch, the presence of linguistic differences between AAE and the dialect of instruction, which is almost always GAE. Dialect mismatch has been shown to negatively impact spoken language comprehension, but the mechanisms that underlie this relationship remain unclear. These consequences have been traditionally explained in terms of signal degradation, in which perceptual analysis is more difficult (perceptual costs hypothesis). However, spoken language comprehension is more than perceptual analysis. An alternative explanation, the epistemic trust hypothesis posits that the effects of dialect mismatch on spoken language comprehension also arise from sociocultural differences between conversational partners. The primary objective of this research is to evaluate the validity of the epistemic trust hypothesis. Using the visual world paradigm, the effects of dialect mismatch and group membership on the comprehension of literal and intending meaning will be evaluated in 7- to 9-year-old children learning AAE or GAE. To evaluate the effects of dialect mismatch on spoken language comprehension, children will hear sentences in a familiar and unfamiliar dialect of English. To evaluate the role of epistemic trust, sentences will be paired with visual images of speakers of different races to convey in-group or out-group membership. Aim 1 examines the effect of dialect and group membership on semantic prediction. Aim 2 examines the effect of dialect and group membership on children’s pragmatic inferencing skills, specifically, scalar implicatures. Collectively, these two studies innovatively respond to the question of how dialect mismatch impacts spoken language comprehension. Traditional explanations focus on perceptual costs, which has resulted in the development of dialect-shifting curricula. However, spoken language comprehension is more than perceptual analysis and requires integration of speaker intent, which may be harder to do when there are both dialect and sociocultural differences. The studies proposed directly test the validity of the epistemic trust hypothesis. If this hypothesis is supported, then this would suggest that curricula that also consider epistemic trust may be better suited to address educational consequences associated with dialect mismatch.