In search of conceptual frameworks for relating brain activity to language function.

Abstract

The focus of the current topic is the analysis and interpretation of second language (L2) and multilingual data. Looking at data from speakers who have learned their additional languages after the mother tongue has become well established is of special interest. It advances our knowledge about how different language systems share space in the same mind, a question to be asked of any kind of multilingual at any age—and secondly it can tell us more about potential differences between early and later learned languages (Kim et al., 1997; Kovelman et al., 2008). More recent research points to brain areas activated in late learners of L2s becoming more and more like those of L1 acquirers as their proficiency advances (Green, 2003). At earlier stages of acquisition, adults may simply adopt compensatory strategies, for example recruiting new cognitive resources that have become available with increasing maturity to complete communicative tasks that are demanding either because, unlike very young children, they personally want or are compelled by interlocutors to communicate complex ideas, or because the requirements of a given experiment simply make the tasks demanding. This will therefore implicate regions of the brain that are much less involved in young language users and these may stay involved even where higher levels of L2 ability render them much less important or even unnecessary. In any case, to get the full picture we need ways of tracking this strategic activity, one aspect of which is the deployment of explicit processes, both those involving conscious awareness and those that may be raised to awareness but can also operate subconsciously but there will surely be processes that only operate subconsciously as well (Sharwood Smith and Truscott, 2011). These will affect not only the spontaneous uses of L1 and L2 but also performance on experimental tasks. Tracking brain activity with sophisticated apparatus is not enough of course: the data needs to be analyzed and for this we need very sophisticated theoretical frameworks to guide interpretation.