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

项目总结 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 是由护理人员在两种语言之间的动态切换定义的。与流行的看法相反，只有很小的 少数双语儿童在严格的一人一语环境中长大。相反，大多数 双语儿童经常从同一个人那里听到两种语言，在相同的对话中，而且经常 在同一句话中(例如，“看看佩罗！”)。关于年轻的双语者如何学习，我们知之甚少。 语言之间的内在变化。我们的主要目标是了解双语婴儿和 蹒跚学步的孩子在日常的句子、对话和对话中学习两种语言 人民。基于我们之前由NICHD资助的R03的发现，我们将测试总体假设 双语环境中的语言转换是双语婴儿语言学习和学习的关键因素 语言结果。拟议的跨实验室国际项目将测试相同的西班牙语-英语和 12、24和36个月大的法英双语儿童，使用互补的行为， 对年轻双语者从语言转换中学习的家庭测量和纵向测量。AIM 1将使用 眼球跟踪和瞳孔测量实验研究双语婴幼儿如何处理和学习 从句子之间的语言转换(Exps.1-2)、对话(Exps.3-4)和人员(Exps.5-6)。目标 2(实验7)将使用多天的家庭语言录音来调查是否以及如何使用语言 在家中的转换塑造了早期的语言加工，并对语言和认知做出了独特的贡献 结果。拟议的实验将同时在两个不同的双语人群中进行： 新泽西州的西班牙语-英语双语者和蒙特雷亚尔的法语-英语双语者。基于相交 这些社区之间的社会语言、人口统计和经验差异，这种方法将 解决双语研究中普遍存在的关键问题，即研究结果是否特定于一种语言 或者他们是否有理由得出普遍的结论。总而言之，拟议的研究将阐明 语言发展的一个重要的现实挑战：双语婴儿和学步儿童如何熟悉 从双语输入的复杂性中学习单词和新单词，无论是时时刻刻还是在 聚集在一起。这些发现将使我们能够(A)产生一个新的和全面的理论模型 在婴幼儿中出现双语现象，以及(B)制定和传播循证指南 培养早期的双语能力。双语父母几乎无一例外地认为有些双语环境 比其他人更好，就像教育家、儿科医生和言语病理学家一样，他们努力 优化儿童双语学习，最大限度降低语言延迟风险。我们的互补性 测量双语输入和学习的动态可能会导致更好的方法来支持婴儿和 学步儿童通晓双语的途径。

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.