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The Cognitive Neuroscience of Second Language Acquisition

Marianne Gullberg (Edited by), M Gullberg (Author), Peter Indefrey (Edited by)

9781405155427, Wiley

Paperback / softback, published 4 October 2006

356 pages
22.9 x 15.3 x 1.9 cm, 0.49 kg

“The work sets out to consider the neural evidence regarding L2 critical periods and related issues, a task in which it succeeds rather well.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition

This volume explores the cognitive neuroscience of second language acquisition from the perspectives of critical/sensitive periods, maturational effects, individual differences, neural regions involved, and processing characteristics. The research methods used include functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), and event related potentials (ERP).


  • The studies in this volume provide initial answers to core questions including: which brain areas are reliably activated in second language processing? Are they the same or different from those activated in first language acquisition and use? And what are the behavioral consequences of individual differences among brains?

1. Age and second language acquisition: A selective overview.

2. L2 acquisition, age and generativist reasoning. Commentary on Birdsong.

3. Development of the human cortex and the concept of "critical" or '"sensitive" periods.

4. What we cannot learn from neuroanatomy about language learning and language processing. Commentary on Uylings.

5. Convergence, degeneracy and control.

6. The plastic bilingual brain: Synaptic pruning or growth? Commentary on Green, et al.

7. Executive control in bilingual language processing.

8. On language and the brain – Or on (psycho)linguists and neuroscientists? Commentary on Rodriguez-Fornells et al.

9. Novice learners, longitudinal designs, and event-related potentials: A means for exploring the neurocognition of second-language processing.

10. Strategies for longitudinal neurophysiology. Commentary on Osterhout et al.

11. L2 in a nutshell - The investigation of second language processing in the miniature language model.

12. Cracking the nutshell differently. Commentary on Mueller.

13. A meta-analysis of hemodynamic studies on first and second language processing: Which suggested differences can we trust and what do they mean?.

14. When does the neurological basis of first and second language processing differ? Commentary on Indefrey.

15. Summing up: Some themes in the cognitive neuroscience of second language acquisition

Subject Areas: Language: reference & general [CB]
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