IBSS: Communication in the Global University: A Longitudinal Study of Language Adaptation at Multiple Timescales in Native- and Non-Native Speakers

This interdisciplinary research project will examine how native and non-native speakers of English adapt to accents, linguistic knowledge, and communication practices that may differ markedly from their own in the context of a large public university. The project will explore the nature of communications in college classrooms, where much of the instruction (particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields) is provided by instructors who are not native speakers of English. The project will enhance understanding of basic language representations, processing, and use by native and non-native speakers of English engaged in social interaction. The project will generate new information and insights regarding the flexible adaptive processes that underlie human communication and language development by addressing issues associated with pronunciation by non-native speakers as well as the nature of mutual intelligibility and adaptation on the part of both native and non-native speakers of a language. The project will inform efforts to facilitate communication between native and non-native speakers of English. Project findings will be useful for those engaged in developing and implementing programs to improve communications skills of those who will serve as instructors, and they may help improve capabilities of students to better understand those whose native languages differ from their own, thereby improving the students' academic success and preparation to participate in the modern workforce. While an immediate aim is to enhance communication in the college classroom, project findings will be applicable to any situation in which cross-cultural communication is crucial. The investigators will conduct a longitudinal study involving approximately 150 international students newly arrived in the United States and more than 1,000 native-English-speaking American undergraduates. The project will be grounded in a theoretical framework that views successful communication as fundamentally collaborative. The goal is to measure, track, and improve not only the international teaching assistants' developing communication skills in English, but also the undergraduates' understanding of and adaptations to foreign-accented English as well as their ability to learn to transfer their experience of one accent to another. Reflecting the composition of international graduate students at U.S. universities, over half of the international teaching assistants in the study will be native speakers of Chinese, with the rest being native speakers of Korean, Russian, and other Asian and European languages. Multiple methods of analysis will include ethnographic observations and interviews, psycholinguistic and dialog experiments, linguistic analyses of spontaneous and elicited speech, electrophysiology studies of perception, eye tracking studies of language processing, and surveys. Data will be collected from the same individuals at multiple timescales (over conversations, class sessions, semesters, and international teaching assistants' first two years in the U.S.) and at multiple levels (from pronunciation and perception of phonetic segments, to use of vocabulary and syntax, to discourse cues and strategies, to communicative norms, preferences, and attitudes). Systematic comparisons will be made in order to learn which kinds of experiences and interactions can lead to enhanced communication between native and non-native English speakers. The data resulting from this project will provide new opportunities for scientists to examine long-term effects in foreign language learning, language processing, and the development of communicative strategies. This project is supported through the NSF Interdisciplinary Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (IBSS) competition.