The Cognitive Neuroscience of Second Language Acquisition [Paperback]

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).

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• 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.