Sunday, June 21, 2009

A Neurolinguistic Theory of Bilingualism: Neuroimaging studies of the Bilingual Brain

Michael Paradis

Chapter 6

Neuroimaging studies have neglected to replicate other studies; therefore, all findings from this field are not proved.

Surely the left-brain is associated with most aspects of language and the right brain kicks in when pragmatics is needed to understand--usually, when the L2 left-brain knowledge is insufficient.

Also, declarative and procedural memory is surely processed in different areas. If the left brain is damaged in early life, the right brain will take on language-learning tasks.

"...a natural (ecological) task such as the comprehension of a short story..."

Don't use single-word recognition, because this is not "language."

"The majority of studies to date (28) have used single words as stimuli (173)."

Paradis looks for converging evidence in the truly linguistic (e.g. ecological) tasks from published studies: procedural memory for language = perisylvian area

"declarative memory and hence metalinguistic knowledge"= parahippocampal gyri, mesial temporal lobes, anterior cingulate

pragmatics=areas of the right hemisphere

Paradis 2000a: "Comprehension is easier than production"

It is almost impossible to fully control for all areas of processing the task. :-(

I think my dissertation should test and retest and retest subjects to ensure validity.

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