Mechanisms to support word learning in a non-native language

Drake, Shiloh, Lewisburg PA

Investigators

Abstract

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Melissa M. Baese-Berk at the University of Oregon, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating processes that affect language learning as an adult. We effortlessly incorporate new words like kvetch and Google into our native language structure, but we have much more difficulty learning how words are structured in the languages we learn as adults. Languages like Arabic present a particular challenge for English speakers to learn due to its word formation processes being dramatically different from English: for example, while book and cat become books and cats in English, kitaab (book) and qitta (cat) become kutub (books) and qitaat (cats) in Arabic. Which factors affect how well we learn these patterns in languages that we learn as adults? By knowing more about the factors that influence adult word learning and exploring the types of errors that adults make in the early stages of learning a language, we can develop a more nuanced view of how language learning happens in the fully developed adult mind. This research will also provide insight into one of the key theoretical questions in language acquisition: Why are we able to continue learning and integrating new words in our primary language throughout our lifespan, but have difficulty learning nativelike structural properties of words in languages we acquire as adults? The three proposed manipulations take advantage of common techniques and limitations in the second language classroom to better connect the existing psycholinguistics literature in processing and the existing second language acquisition and pedagogy literature. The proposed project uses an artificial grammar learning paradigm that incorporates different word formation patterns while different learning scenarios are tested. This will provide us with further knowledge about which of the scenarios are most effective for word learning, and can be incorporated into classroom pedagogy. 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.