Elsevier

NeuroImage

Volume 20, Issue 4, December 2003, Pages 2181-2196
NeuroImage

Regular article
Multilingualism: an fMRI study

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2003.07.029Get rights and content

Abstract

To investigate the hypothesis that in multilingual speakers different languages are represented in distinct brain regions, 12 multilingual right-handed men performed a word fluency task, a picture naming task, a comprehension reading task, and their respective control tasks in three languages (Dutch, French, and English) while whole-head functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was applied. In general, all language tasks revealed predominantly overlapping regions of activation for the different languages. Cerebral activation during use of the foreign languages showed a tendency toward a more extensive recruitment of the areas activated in the native language and the activation of a greater number of regions. Word generation in the foreign languages elicited additional bilateral inferior frontal activation, including Broca's area and left middle temporal gyrus activation; in the native language, additional postcentral activation was found. Picture naming in the foreign languages recruited additional inferior-lateral and medial frontal regions predominantly on the left, and more posterior right hemispheric activation in the mother tongue. During comprehension reading there was more activation in medial posterior regions in the native language. Our results suggest that the performance of language tasks in different languages engages largely the same cerebral areas but that the brain, to perform at a comparable proficiency level, engages more neural substrates for later acquired languages. Our findings do not support the view that languages learned later in life entail more right hemispheric involvement. Finally, a consequent effect of language exposure was found for reading, where increased familiarity engages more occipital activation whereas decreased familiarity appears to be associated with increased left hemispheric inferior frontal activation.

Section snippets

Participants

Twelve healthy male volunteers participated in this study following written informed consent according to institutional guidelines of the Ethics Committee of the Ghent University Hospital. All participants were between 19 and 49 years of age (mean ± SD, 27.6 ± 9.4 years) and were consistent right-handers as measured by the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (laterality index: mean ± SD, 87% ± 14%; range, 66%–100%) (Oldfield, 1971) suggesting left cerebral dominance for language. All volunteers were

Behavioral data

As can deducted from Table 1, English is, on average, acquired three years later than French. However, in the northern (Dutch speaking) part of Belgium, both active and passive exposure to English is higher than it is to French (Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Z = −2.69, P = .007). Subjective proficiency is also estimated to be higher for English (Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Z = −2.49, P = .013), although this impression is not confirmed by the results of a short translation task, showing no significant

Discussion

Thus far, neuroimaging studies (PET and fMRI) have yielded inconsistent findings with respect to the hypothesis that in bilingual individuals different languages are represented and processed in distinct brain areas. Whereas some studies found that both languages are represented in the same brain area, at least for some aspects of language (e.g., Illes et al., 1999, Klein et al., 1995, Chee et al., 1999, Hasegawa et al., 2002, others found distinct cortical areas associated with each language

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