Doctoral Dissertation Research: Learning and processing mechanisms for singular they/them pronouns

博士论文研究：单数they/them代词的学习和处理机制

• 批准号: 2214299
• 负责人: Sarah Brown-Schmidt
• 金额: $ 1.41万
• 依托单位: Vanderbilt University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-01 至 2025-01-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2214299&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Learning; processing

The use of the pronoun “they” instead of singular “he” or “she” to refer to a lone individual has met with mixed acceptance for a variety of purposes and can be challenging for some listeners and speakers despite the fact that, historically, singular-they is well entrenched in the language. For example, many people who don't intend to misgender others still make errors in their actual language production. Errors are particularly common with singular they, which is becoming more common and more accepted (46% of younger Americans in 2021 know someone who uses they/them pronouns, up from 32% in 2018), but is still new to many speakers. This project asks why errors like these occur, and tests learning strategies and speech production outcomes.This project draws on sentence processing, speech production, perspective-taking, and error-based learning approaches to ask novel questions about mechanisms of language learning and production. Building on promising preliminary data, the proposed experiments investigate how difficulties with singular they arise during language processing, how choices between alternative pronouns are affected by context, and what strategies support learning to remember people’s stated pronouns and fluently produce singular they. De-identified data and code will be made publicly available, along with study pre-registrations. In addition to informing evidence-based best practices for reducing misgendering, the findings of the proposed studies will advance understanding of language learning and speech production.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.

代词“他们”而不是单数“他”或“她”来指代一个孤独的人，但出于各种目的而遇到了混杂的接受，对于某些听众和说话者而言，尽管从历史上看，这是奇异的 - 他们在该语言中根深蒂固。例如，许多不打算错过其他人的人仍然在其实际语言制作中犯错误。错误尤其普遍，因为它们变得越来越普遍，并且越来越被接受（2021年使用它们的年轻美国人/他们的代词中，有46％的美国人，而不是2018年的32％），但对于许多演讲者来说仍然是新的。该项目询问为什么会发生这种错误，并测试学习策略和语音生产成果。该项目借鉴了句子处理，语音生产，观点的观点以及基于错误的学习方法，以询问有关语言学习和生产机制的新颖问题。在承诺的初步数据的基础上，拟议的实验研究了它们在语言处理过程中的奇异困难，替代代词之间的选择如何受到上下文的影响以及哪些策略支持学习记住人们的陈述代词并流利地产生单数。取消识别的数据和代码将与研究预注册一起公开提供。除了为减少失误的循证最佳实践提供信息外，拟议的研究的结果还将提高对语言学习和语音生产的理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用该基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响来评估NSF的法定任务，并被认为是宝贵的支持。