Tracking second language immersion across time: Evidence from a bi-directional longitudinal cross-linguistic fMRI study.

ABSTRACT: Parallel cohorts of Hebrew speakers learning English in the U.S., and American-English speakers learning Hebrew in Israel were tracked over the course of two years of immersion in their L2. We utilised a functional MRI semantic judgement task with print and speech tokens, as well as a battery of linguistic and cognitive behavioural measures prior to and after immersion, to track changes in both L1 and L2 processing. fMRI activation for print tokens produced a similar network of activation in both English and Hebrew, irrespective of L1 or L2 status. Significant convergence of print and speech processing was also observed in both languages across a network of left-hemisphere regions joint for both L1 and L2. Despite significant increases in behavioural measures of L2 proficiency, only a few

SUBMITTER: Brice H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8025207 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature