Martohardjono Gita, Johns Michael A, Franciotti Pamela, Castillo Daniela, Porru Ilaria, Lowry Cass
Department of Linguistics and Communication Disorders, Queens College, New York, NY, United States.
Second Language Acquisition Laboratory, Linguistics Program, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, NY, United States.
Front Psychol. 2023 Jul 14;14:1180989. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1180989. eCollection 2023.
Traditional studies of the population called "heritage speakers" (HS) have treated this group as distinct from other bilingual populations, e.g., simultaneous or late bilinguals (LB), focusing on group differences in the competencies of the first-acquired language or "heritage language". While several explanations have been proposed for such differences (e.g., incomplete acquisition, attrition, differential processing mechanisms), few have taken into consideration the individual variation that must occur, due to the fluctuation of factors such as exposure and use that characterize all bilinguals. In addition, few studies have used implicit measures, e.g., psychophysiological methods (ERPs; Eye-tracking), that can circumvent confounding variables such as resorting to conscious metalinguistic knowledge.
This study uses pupillometry, a method that has only recently been used in psycholinguistic studies of bilingualism, to investigate pupillary responses to three syntactic island constructions in two groups of Spanish/English bilinguals: heritage speakers and late bilinguals. Data were analyzed using generalized additive mixed effects models (GAMMs) and two models were created and compared to one another: one with group (LB/HS) and the other with groups collapsed and current and historical use of Spanish as continuous variables.
Results show that group-based models generally yield conflicting results while models collapsing groups and having usage as a predictor yield consistent ones. In particular, current use predicts sensitivity to L1 ungrammaticality across both HS and LB populations. We conclude that individual variation, as measured by use, is a critical factor tha must be taken into account in the description of the language competencies and processing of heritage and late bilinguals alike.
对被称为“传承语者”（HS）群体的传统研究将该群体视为有别于其他双语群体，例如同时双语者或晚期双语者（LB），重点关注第一语言即“传承语言”能力方面的群体差异。尽管针对此类差异已提出了多种解释（例如，习得不完整、语言损耗、不同的处理机制），但由于所有双语者都具有诸如接触和使用频率等因素的波动，很少有人考虑到必然会出现的个体差异。此外，很少有研究使用隐性测量方法，例如心理生理学方法（事件相关电位；眼动追踪），这些方法可以规避诸如依赖有意识的元语言知识等混淆变量。
本研究使用瞳孔测量法，这是一种最近才用于双语心理语言学研究的方法，来调查两组西班牙裔/英语双语者（传承语者和晚期双语者）对三种句法孤岛结构的瞳孔反应。使用广义相加混合效应模型（GAMMs）对数据进行分析，并创建了两个模型并相互比较：一个模型包含群体因素（LB/HS），另一个模型将群体合并，并将西班牙语的当前和历史使用情况作为连续变量。
结果表明，基于群体的模型通常会产生相互矛盾的结果，而将群体合并并将使用情况作为预测变量的模型则会产生一致的结果。特别是，当前的使用情况预测了HS和LB群体对第一语言不合语法性的敏感度。我们得出结论，以使用情况衡量的个体差异是一个关键因素，在描述传承语者和晚期双语者的语言能力及语言处理过程时都必须予以考虑。
