Language and Conceptual Processing in Bilinguals

我的研究项目是调查双语语言处理的认知方面。我们的目标是了解双语者如何表达、处理和学习他们的两种语言。双语是一个与加拿大社会高度相关的话题。我们是一个官方的英法双语国家，但我们也有许多公民（2011年人口普查中有20%）的母语既不是英语也不是法语，特别是在我们的大城市。我们的大多数新居民面临的最大挑战之一是学习英语或法语，以便他们能够在新的社区中发挥作用。由于双语在加拿大的普及和重要性，我们有必要了解双语者在用每种语言说话和阅读时的想法，并了解与成功使用多种语言沟通能力相关的因素。

My program of research investigates cognitive aspects of bilingual language processing. The goal is to understand how bilinguals represent, process, and learn their two languages. Bilingualism is a highly relevant topic to Canadian society. We are an officially English-French bilingual country, but we also have many citizens (20% in the 2011 census) whose mother tongue is neither English nor French, especially in our largest cities. One of the biggest challenges facing most of our newest residents is to learn English or French so that they can function in their new communities. Because of the prevalence and importance of bilingualism in Canada, it is essential that we understand what is happening in the mind of the bilingual as they speak and read in each of their languages, and understand the factors related to the ability to successfully communicate in more than one language. Specifically, my research will address three topics in bilingualism. One series of studies will investigate word reading. The aim of the research is to understand how a bilingual's first language influences their reading in a second language and vice versa. A second series of studies will examine how a bilingual understands the meanings of pairs of words that are translations of each other but not entirely equivalent in meaning. These subtle differences across languages pose a challenge to learners of a second language and to translation computer programs. The third series of studies will investigate whether success at learning a new language is predicted by an individual's statistical learning ability. There are large individual differences in second language learning outcomes, but the source of these differences has been elusive. A recent proposal is that that a person's general capacity to pick up on statistical structure in the environment is related to second language learning, but it has not yet been well tested. The research will involve not only English-French bilinguals, but also individuals who know English and one of several other languages. The goal is to extend our understanding of bilingualism, which now is based primarily on individuals who know English and one of a small number of Western European languages, to individuals whose languages differ in the writing system that they use, and to languages that are associated with different cultural contexts. This will help ensure that our theories of bilingual language processing capture the important characteristics of all bilinguals. The work will use state of the art methods in the study of language processing, including eye tracking and event-related potentials. The research program will provide a better understanding of the challenges associated with learning and using two languages, and the factors related to success.