Two studies examined the role of input distribution in English construction learning, by child learners from a Mandarin first‐language background, and the extent to which phonological short‐term memory and awareness predicted such learning. In the first study, 4th‐grade students of Mandarin Chinese (N = 121) learned the English object‐cleft construction under skewed or balanced input conditions. In the skewed condition, the construction was instantiated by exemplars with a high token‐frequency verb; in the balanced condition, the exemplars were evenly distributed. The second study (N = 117) replicated the first study, except that the argument nouns of the verbs in the exemplars also varied. The 2 studies yielded similar results in that children's comprehension of new sentences of the construction and use of the construction to infer new words were not affected by input distribution but were associated with phonological awareness and short‐term memory. The results suggest that while child learners of a foreign language could abstract a new pattern from input without direct instruction, their performance was more consistently associated with individual learner factors than with input‐related factors.

中文翻译：

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外语儿童学习者的建构学习：输入分布和学习者因素

两项研究检验了汉语普通话母语背景下的儿童学习者在英语建构学习中输入分布的作用，以及语音短期记忆和意识在多大程度上预测了这种学习。在第一项研究中，普通话的四年级学生（N = 121）在偏斜或平衡的输入条件下学习了英语宾语裂缝构造。在偏斜的情况下，该构造被具有较高记号频率动词的示例实例化；在平衡的条件下，样本分布均匀。第二项研究（N= 117）重复了第一项研究，但示例中动词的论点名词也有所不同。两项研究产生了相似的结果，因为儿童对结构新句子的理解以及使用结构来推断新单词不受输入分布的影响，但与语音意识和短期记忆有关。结果表明，虽然外语儿童学习者无需直接指导就可以从输入中抽象出一种新模式，但他们的表现与单个学习者因素相比，与与输入有关的因素更为一致。