Doctoral Dissertation Research: Using eye-tracking to study auditory comprehension in codeswitching: Evidence for the link between production and comprehension

博士论文研究：使用眼动追踪研究语码转换中的听觉理解：产生与理解之间联系的证据

• 批准号: 1124218
• 负责人: Paola Dussias
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-09-01 至 2013-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1124218&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Using; eye

Bilinguals in the presence of other bilinguals engage in a linguistic skill known as codeswitching, defined as the fluid alternation between two or more languages within the same conversation (e.g. "El niño está reading el book"). Once thought to be a sign of lack of competence in either language, three decades of research has revealed that codeswitching is systematic and not random. Previous research has mainly studied the production of codeswitching both from theoretical and sociolinguistic perspectives, leaving the comprehension of codeswitched speech an understudied area of inquiry. Yet there are critical consequences for the comprehension system. Whereas production is under the control of the speaker, a listener must seamlessly integrate multiple languages in real time in order to successfully comprehend codeswitched speech. Jorge Valdés Kroff, under the supervision of Drs. Paola Dussias and Chip Gerfen, will conduct a series of experiments to investigate whether codeswitches that are more frequent in production are easier to comprehend for bilinguals. They will capitalize on the presence of grammatical gender in codeswitched noun phrases to investigate this question and will use an eye-tracking methodology known as the visual world paradigm. Participants are shown objects in a visual scene while listening to a phrase that names one of the objects. By examining the pattern of eye movements, researchers are able make inferences on the timecourse of comprehension of speech. This line of research provides an ideal testing ground for examining the link between production and comprehension by specifically testing the hypothesis that language use and exposure have critical consequences for how the comprehension system processes language. Furthermore, the focus on Spanish-English bilinguals in the U.S. will provide important information on a vastly underrepresented yet increasingly visible sector of our society with implications for language policy in education and cognition in general.

双语者在其他双语者面前进行一种称为语码转换的语言技能，定义为在同一对话中两种或多种语言之间的流畅交替（例如“El niño está Reading el book”）。由于缺乏两种语言的能力，三十年的研究表明，语码转换是系统性的，而不是随机的，以前的研究主要从理论和社会语言学的角度研究语码转换的产生，而忽略了对语码转换的理解。语音是一个尚未被研究的领域，然而，当语音的生成由说话者控制时，听众必须实时无缝地集成多种语言，才能成功理解语码转换的语音。 Valdés Kroff 在 Paola Dussias 博士和 Chip Gerfen 博士的监督下，将进行一系列实验，以研究生产中更频繁的语码转换是否更容易被双语者理解。代码转换名词短语中的语法性别来研究这个问题，并将使用一种称为视觉世界范式的眼球追踪方法，通过检查其中一个物体的模式，向参与者展示视觉场景中的物体，同时聆听命名其中一个物体的短语。通过眼球运动，研究人员能够对言语理解的时间进程做出推断，这一系列研究通过专门测试语言使用和接触对理解如何产生关键影响的假设，为检查生成和理解之间的联系提供了理想的试验场。系统处理语言。对美国西班牙语-英语双语者的关注将为我们社会中一个代表性严重不足但日益明显的群体提供重要信息，并对教育和认知方面的语言政策产生影响。