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.

使用代词“他们”而不是单数“他”或“她”来指代孤独的个体，出于各种目的而得到了不同的接受，并且对一些听众和演讲者来说可能是一个挑战，尽管历史上，单数-they 在语言中根深蒂固。例如，许多不想混淆他人性别的人在实际的语言表达中仍然会犯错误。单数they 的错误尤其常见，这种错误正变得越来越普遍和越来越被接受（46）。 2021 年年轻美国人所占百分比知道有人使用他们/他们代词，高于 2018 年的 32%），但对许多演讲者来说仍然是新鲜事。这个项目询问为什么会发生这样的错误，并测试学习策略和语音生成结果。这个项目利用了句子处理，基于有希望的初步数据，提出的实验研究了语言处理过程中单数困难是如何出现的，以及替代代词之间的选择如何。受环境影响，以及支持学习的策略记住人们所说的代词并流利地产生单数“they”，去识别化的数据和代码将与研究预注册一起公开。除了提供基于证据的减少性别错误的最佳实践之外，拟议研究的结果还将公开。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。