Neural systems of second language reading are shaped by native language.

Full Abstract

Reading in a second language (L2) is a complex task that entails an interaction between L2 and the native language (L1). To study the underlying mechanisms, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to visualize Chinese-English bilinguals' brain activity in phonological processing of logographic Chinese and alphabetic English, two written languages with a sharp contrast in phonology and orthography. In Experiment 1, we found that phonological processing of Chinese characters recruits a neural system involving left middle frontal and posterior parietal gyri, cortical regions that are known to contribute to spatial information representation, spatial working memory, and coordination of cognitive resources as a central executive system. We assume that the peak activation of this system is relevant to the unique feature of Chinese that a logographic character has a square configuration that maps onto a monosyllabic unit of speech. Equally important, when our bilingual subjects performed a phonological task on English words, this neural system was most active, whereas brain areas mediating English monolinguals' fine-grained phonemic analysis, as demonstrated by Experiment 2, were only weakly activated. This suggests that our bilingual subjects were applying their L1 system to L2 reading and that the lack of letter-to-sound conversion rules in Chinese led Chinese readers to being less capable of processing English by recourse to an analytic reading system on which English monolinguals rely. Our brain imaging findings lend strongest support to the idea that language experience tunes the cortex.Copyright 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

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Author information

Author/s: Tan, Li Hai (LH); Spinks, John A (JA); Feng, Ching-Mei (CM); Siok, Wai Ting (WT); Perfetti, Charles A (CA); Xiong, Jinhu (J); Fox, Peter T (PT); Gao, Jia-Hong (JH);

Affiliation: Joint Laboratories for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. tanlh(-atsign-)hkucc.hku.hk

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Human brain mapping (Hum Brain Mapp), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2003-Mar; vol 18 (issue 3) : pp 158-66

Dates: Created 2003/02/24; Completed 2003/05/07; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 12599273, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Multilingualism
Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology
Phonetics
Reading

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