Project Grant 2204272

This two-year, $138,000 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences program will support research examining syntactic regulation and adaptation in bidialectal and heritage bilingual speakers. The goal is to better understand the nature and consequences of proficient, multidialectal language experience.

Under the sponsorship of Dr. Julie Washington at the University of California, Irvine, the postdoctoral fellow will conduct a neurolinguistic investigation of brain activity and reading behaviors in highly competent adult speakers of African American English and Spanish-influenced English. Eye movements and electroencephalography responses to grammatical variations characteristic of these dialectal and heritage languages will be examined. The research aims to demonstrate linguistic competencies and cognitive strengths of multidialectal speakers, as well as characterize the complexity of diverse language experiences and their relationship to language processing and comprehension. Insights will contribute to strengths-based understandings of major minority language communities in the U.S.