Perani, D., Paulesu, E., Sebastian-Galles, N., Dupoux, E., Dehaene, S., Bettinardi, V., Cappa, S. F., Fazio, F., & Mehler, J. (1998). The bilingual brain: Proficiency and age of acquisition of the second language. Brain, 121, 1841–1852.
Presentation: Angela
Summary: Saran
The primary goal of this study is to investigate the effects of L2 proficiency and age of acquisition on bilingual speakers’ language processing by utilizing brain imaging techniques. Two groups of bilingual speakers were recruited – highly proficient, late acquired Italian-English speakers, and highly proficient, early acquired Spanish-Catalan speakers. Results of these two groups were compared with those of Perani et al.’s study (1996), whose subjects were low proficient, late acquired Italian-English speakers. There were four types of stimuli, including subjects’ L1, L2, Japanese, and attentive silence, with the latter two serving as baselines. Subjects’ brain activities were recorded through PET scanning while they listened to those stimuli. Results showed that these three groups of subjects had similar brain areas activated when listening to their L1. Nevertheless, when listening to L2, the activation areas of the two high proficiency groups were similar, but were significantly different from those of the low proficiency group. It was thus suggested that proficiency seemed to play a more crucial role than age of acquisition in determining how L2 was processed. However, this result was contradictory to previous studies which found age of acquisition to be a more important factor. Such a discrepancy possibly resulted from task differences – listening task in the present study but speaking task in the previous study. The authors therefore concluded that proficiency was a more determinant factor in L2 comprehension, whereas age of acquisition was more influential in L2 production.
Presentation: Angela
Summary: Saran
The primary goal of this study is to investigate the effects of L2 proficiency and age of acquisition on bilingual speakers’ language processing by utilizing brain imaging techniques. Two groups of bilingual speakers were recruited – highly proficient, late acquired Italian-English speakers, and highly proficient, early acquired Spanish-Catalan speakers. Results of these two groups were compared with those of Perani et al.’s study (1996), whose subjects were low proficient, late acquired Italian-English speakers. There were four types of stimuli, including subjects’ L1, L2, Japanese, and attentive silence, with the latter two serving as baselines. Subjects’ brain activities were recorded through PET scanning while they listened to those stimuli. Results showed that these three groups of subjects had similar brain areas activated when listening to their L1. Nevertheless, when listening to L2, the activation areas of the two high proficiency groups were similar, but were significantly different from those of the low proficiency group. It was thus suggested that proficiency seemed to play a more crucial role than age of acquisition in determining how L2 was processed. However, this result was contradictory to previous studies which found age of acquisition to be a more important factor. Such a discrepancy possibly resulted from task differences – listening task in the present study but speaking task in the previous study. The authors therefore concluded that proficiency was a more determinant factor in L2 comprehension, whereas age of acquisition was more influential in L2 production.
No comments:
Post a Comment