title: Syntax production in bilinguals.
abstract: We used fMRI to examine the functional correlates of syntactical processing in the first (L1) and second (L2) languages of non-proficient, late bilinguals. Subjects either covertly read words or produced sentences from them. Syntactical production during sentence production activated regions including left inferior frontal (LIFG) gyrus and the supplementary motor area in both languages. Analyses performed on the LIFG activation identified on a subject-by-subject basis revealed greater activation in L2 compared to L1 during sentence production and during word reading, consistent with previous work suggesting that greater cognitive effort may be subserved by less well-tuned neural representations that require greater neuronal activity. Remarkably, there was a greater separation in the LIFG activations in L1 versus L2 in less compared to more proficient bilinguals during syntax production, suggesting a functional reorganisation of regions involved in syntactical production as a function of syntactical proficiency.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, UK. narlyg@bic.mni.mcgill.ca
authors.forename: Narly
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Golestani
authors.forename: F-Xavier
authors.initials: FX
authors.lastname: Alario
authors.forename: Sébastien
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Meriaux
authors.forename: Denis
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Le Bihan
authors.forename: Stanislas
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dehaene
authors.forename: Christophe
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pallier
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D019303:Multilingualism; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen