Brain Correlates of Phonetic Foreign Language Talent

本课题旨在对外语发音天赋的认知神经科学进行研究，旨在寻找外语发音天赋的神经关联，以期对我们理解语言和语言学习能力的神经生物学基础具有深远的意义。人们习得外语的能力、能力、成功率和速度各不相同，这是一种普遍的观察。尤其是语音-发音方面，似乎是一种特定的亚技能，其神经基础被认为是分开的。到目前为止，只有很少的神经成像研究专门研究了一般的语言天赋，显示了总体上有天赋/成功的第二语言学习者之间的结构解剖和功能差异。除了这些考察一般语言天赋的少数研究外，到目前为止还没有关于语音语言学习能力(发音天赋)的研究。在关于高水平和低水平双语者的文献中，研究第二语言水平和大脑激活之间的相关性的研究经常发现，更多的激活(在强度和/或程度上)与较低的水平相关，而与较高的第二语言(L2)水平的模式相反。无论语言水平或语言天赋如何，考察语言产出的研究已经阐明了在第二语言发音过程中特别是左壳核的参与(Klein 1994)，以及反复出现的基底节和左岛参与母语发音的情况。基于这些先前的研究以及我们的研究小组(Ackermann、Dogil、Grodd、Riecker、Hertrich、Mathiak)先前对正常人群和神经受损人群的发音和语言产生的功能磁共振成像(FMRI)研究，我们阐述了以下将通过功能磁共振成像(FMRI)和脑磁图(MEG)检验的研究问题和假设。

The present project aims at the investigation of ¿The Cognitive Neuroscience of Foreign Language Pronunciation Talent¿, intending to find the neural correlates of foreign language pronunciation talent, with the far-reaching aim to contribute to our understanding of the neurobiological basis of language and language learning abilities. It is a commonplace observation that people differ in their aptitude, capacity, success and speed of foreign language acquisition. Especially the phonetic-articulatory aspect seems to be a specific subskill for which separate neural substrates have been assumed. So far, only very few neuroimaging studies specifically investigated general language talent, showing structural anatomical and functional differences between generally more and less talented/ successful second language learners. Apart from these few studies examining general language talent, no study so far investigated phonetic language learning ability (pronunciation talent). Within the literature on high versus low proficiency bilinguals, studies investigating correlations between second language proficiency level and brain activation often found more activation (in intensity and / or extent) correlating with lower proficiency level and the reverse patterns for higher second language (L2) proficiency. Research examining language production regardless of the proficiency level or linguistic talent, has elucidated particular left putaminal engagement during second language articulation (Klein 1994) and repeatedly basal ganglia and left insular involvement in native language articulation. On the basis of these prior studies and previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of our research groups (Ackermann, Dogil, Grodd, Riecker, Hertrich, Mathiak) on articulation and language production in normal and neurologically impaired populations, we elaborated the following research questions and hypotheses to be examined by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG).