Suh Soyoung, Yoon Hyo Woon, Lee Seungbok, Chung Jun-Young, Cho Zang-Hee, Park Hyunwook
Department of Psychology, Chungbuk National University, Heungdukku Gaeshindong 12, Cheongju, South Korea.
Brain Res. 2007 Mar 9;1136(1):178-89. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2006.12.043. Epub 2006 Dec 20.
The neural mechanisms underlying the syntactic processing of sentence comprehension in Korean (L1) and English (L2) by late bilinguals were investigated using functional MRI. The Korean native speakers were asked to read sentences with different levels of syntactic complexity in L1 and L2 and respond to comprehension questions concerning the sentences. The syntactic complexity was varied using a center-embedded sentence "The director that the maid introduced ignored the farmer" or a conjoined sentence "The maid introduced the director and ignored the farmer". It was found that the major areas involved in sentence processing such as the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), bilateral inferior parietal gyrus, and occipital lobe including cuneus, and lingual gyrus were commonly activated during the processing of both L1 and L2. However, the pattern of activation was different for L1 and L2 in the left IFG. The amount of activation was greater for embedded sentences than for conjoined sentences in L1 while no difference was found in L2. These results suggest that the cortical areas involved with syntactic processing in L1 and L2 are shared, but that the underlying neural mechanisms are different. The findings of the present study are discussed in comparison with Hasegawa et al.'s (Hasegawa, M., Carpenter, P.A., Just, M.A., 2002. An fMRI study of bilingual sentence comprehension and workload. NeuroImage 15, 647-660.) and Yokoyama et al.'s (Yokoyama, S., Okamoto, H., Miyamoto, T., Yoshimoto, K., Kim, J., Iwata, K., Jeong, H., Uchida, S., Ikuta, N., Sassa, Y., Nakamura, W., Horie, K., Sato, S., Kawashima, R., 2006. Cortical activation in the processing of passive sentences in L1 and L2: An fMRI study. NeuroImage 30, 570-579.) studies which also found common areas of activation but different patterns of activation during the processing of L1 and L2.
利用功能磁共振成像技术，对晚期双语者在韩语（第一语言）和英语（第二语言）句子理解的句法处理背后的神经机制进行了研究。以韩语为母语的人被要求阅读第一语言和第二语言中具有不同句法复杂度的句子，并回答有关这些句子的理解问题。句法复杂度通过中心嵌入句“女仆介绍的导演无视了农夫”或并列句“女仆介绍了导演并无视了农夫”来变化。研究发现，在第一语言和第二语言的处理过程中，参与句子处理的主要区域，如左侧额下回（IFG）、双侧顶下叶以及包括楔叶和舌回在内的枕叶，通常都会被激活。然而，左侧额下回中第一语言和第二语言的激活模式有所不同。在第一语言中，嵌入句的激活量大于并列句，而在第二语言中则未发现差异。这些结果表明，第一语言和第二语言中涉及句法处理的皮质区域是共享的，但潜在的神经机制不同。本研究的结果与长谷川等人（长谷川，M.，卡彭特，P.A.，贾斯特，M.A.，2002年。双语句子理解和工作量的功能磁共振成像研究。《神经影像学》15，647 - 660。）以及横山等人（横山，S.，冈本，H.，宫本，T.，吉本，K.，金，J.，岩田，K.，郑，H.，内田，S.，生田，N.，笹佐，Y.，中村，W.，堀江，K.，佐藤，S.，川岛，R.，2006年。第一语言和第二语言中被动句处理的皮质激活：一项功能磁共振成像研究。《神经影像学》30，570 - 579。）的研究进行了比较讨论，这些研究也发现了共同的激活区域，但在第一语言和第二语言的处理过程中激活模式不同。
