Collaborative Research: Listening out for variation: An investigation of mono- and bidialectal listeners in the U.S.

合作研究：倾听变异：对美国单方言和双方言听众的调查

• 批准号: 2041264
• 负责人: Abby Walker
• 金额: $ 11.69万
• 依托单位: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-06-15 至 2024-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2041264&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Listening; out; variation

Is knowing two dialects like knowing two languages? While research has shown that listeners typically find it easier to understand speakers of their own dialect, a large number of listeners have lifelong exposure to multiple dialects, making them receptively bidialectal. This collaborative project explores the behavioral responses (speed and accuracy in understanding speech) and neurophysiological responses (measuring brain activity when hearing speech) of bidialectal and monodialectal adults listening to different dialects. The project specifically studies how context impacts what bidialectal listeners do, testing the hypothesis that these listeners switch between a flexible, but less efficient strategy when they are unsure which dialect to expect, and a focused, more efficient strategy when a given dialect is expected. The project focuses on receptively bidialectal listeners who have long-term exposure to their local dialect as well as Mainstream US English. Participants are tested in both university and community settings using a mobile laboratory (the Brain Bus), expanding on the typical populations used in dialect processing research and increasing participation in neuroscience research. Bidialectalism is a under-researched and under-theorized concept in linguistics. However, the effect that long-term exposure to dialectal variability has on listeners’ cognitive representations and strategies has implications for understanding how listeners process variation in general, and for conceptions of bilingualism and monolingualism as involving different cognitive architectures. By combining behavioral and neurophysiological measures, and building on recent developments in using neuroscience measures in speech perception, the project provides foundational insights on the cognitive and neural bases of bidialectal communication. The project manipulates dialect expectations in two different ways (using visual cues to talker-identity in one experiment, and preceding sentence accent in another), and to different degrees (strong vs. weak vs. no dialect expectations), to examine how generalizable context effects are, and to better understand where listeners draw boundaries between dialects.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

了解两种方言就像了解两种语言吗？虽然研究表明听众通常更容易理解自己方言的使用者，但大量听众终生接触多种方言，这使得他们能够接受双方言。这个合作项目探讨了行为。该项目专门研究了双方言和单方言成年人听不同方言时的反应（理解语音的速度和准确性）和神经生理学反应（测量听到语音时的大脑活动）。这样做，测试了这样一个假设：当这些听众不确定要听哪种方言时，他们会在一种灵活但效率较低的策略之间切换，而当他们需要一种特定的方言时，他们会在一种集中、更有效的策略之间切换。该项目侧重于长期使用双方言的听众。 - 使用移动实验室（大脑总线）在大学和社区环境中对参与者进行当地方言和主流美国英语的测试，扩大方言处理研究中使用的典型人群并增加对神经科学研究的参与。双方言是一种然而，长期接触方言变异性对听者认知表征和策略的影响对于理解听者一般如何处理变异以及双语和单语的概念具有重要意义。通过结合行为和神经生理学测量，并基于在语音感知中使用神经科学测量的最新进展，该项目提供了双方言交流的认知和神经基础的基础见解。以两种不同的方式（在一个实验中使用视觉线索来判断说话者的身份，在另一个实验中使用前面的句子重音）并以不同的程度（强、弱、无方言期望）操纵方言期望，以检查上下文效应的普遍化程度，并更好地理解听众在方言之间划定界限。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。