The Fate of the Native Language in Second Language Learning

母语在第二语言学习中的命运

• 批准号: 1535124
• 负责人: Paola Dussias
• 金额: $ 14.69万
• 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: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-08-01 至 2019-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1535124&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Fate; Native; Language; Second; Learning

Adults often find it difficult to learn a second language. Some adult learners do manage to successfully achieve native-like performance in a second language, but how that occurs or what helps the learner is still unknown. The planned studies will investigate a new hypothesis that proposes that successful adult learners are individuals who are able to tolerate change in their native language. The changes that may be required to enable successful adult language learning may involve processing costs that initially slow the native language and make native language performance more error prone, make learners less sensitive to some features of the native language, and that open the native language to the influences of the language being learned. The project asks whether some adults are better able to accommodate the changes to the native language and, as a result, are more likely to succeed in mastering a second language.Using both cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, the investigators will examine learners at different levels of proficiency in typical classroom learning contexts, immersed in English in the US or in Spanish in Spain. Changes to the native language will be examined at the level of the lexicon and the grammar, comparing comprehension and production, using behavioral measures of speed and accuracy, eye tracking measures during reading, and electrophysiological measures that examine the earliest time course of language processing. The research has a number of broader implications for improving adult second language learning. It can also inform educational issues in a society in which many learners, e.g., immigrant adolescents, are faced with the task of acquiring a second language past the earliest stages of childhood and for whom failure in this task is associated with poor academic, social, and economic outcomes. The research will contribute to the training of a diverse group of cognitive scientists by involving both undergraduate and graduate students, many of whom are bilinguals or second language learners themselves, and will foster an international scientific collaboration.

成年人经常发现很难学习第二语言。 一些成人学习者确实设法成功地以第二语言实现了类似土著的表现，但是这是如何发生或帮助学习者的原因仍然未知的。计划研究将调查一个新的假设，即成功的成年学习者是能够忍受母语变化的个人。实现成功的成人语言学习所需的更改可能涉及处理成本，这些成本最初会减慢母语，使本地语言表现更容易出错，使学习者对母语的某些特征不太敏感，并为学习语言的影响开放母语。该项目询问某些成年人是否能够更好地适应母语的变化，因此，更有可能成功地掌握第二语言。使用横截面和纵向设计，研究人员将检查在典型的课堂学习环境中的不同水平的学习者，在英语中以西班牙语中的西班牙语中的英语中沉浸在spain中。使用速度和准确性的行为度量，阅读过程中的眼睛跟踪度量以及测试语言处理最早的时间过程的电生理学措施，将在词典和语法的层面上检查母语的变化，比较理解和生产。这项研究对改善成人第二语言学习具有更广泛的影响。它还可以在一个社会中为教育问题提供信息，其中许多学习者（例如，移民青少年）面临的任务是在童年的最早阶段获得第二语言，并且在这项任务中失败与学术，社会和经济成果差有关。这项研究将通过参与本科和研究生来为多样化的认知科学家培训，其中许多人本身就是双语者或第二语言学习者，并将促进国际科学合作。