Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Geneva University Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine, Switzerland.
Brain Lang. 2011 Dec;119(3):238-42. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2011.05.008. Epub 2011 Jun 16.
Bilingual aphasia generally affects both languages. However, the age of acquisition of the second language (L2) seems to play a role in the anatomo-functional correlation of the syntactical/grammatical processes, thus potentially influencing the L2 syntactic impairment following a stroke. The present study aims to analyze the influence of late age of acquisition of the L2 on syntactic impairment in bilingual aphasic patients.
Twelve late bilingual participants (speaking French as L2 and either English, German, Italian or Spanish as L1) with stroke-induced aphasia participated in the study. The MAST or BAT aphasia batteries were used to evaluate overall aphasia score. An auditory syntactic judgement task was developed and used to test participants syntactic performance.
The overall aphasia scores did not differ between L1 and L2. In a multiple case analysis, only one patient had lower scores in L2. However, four patients presented significantly lower performances in syntactic processing in the late L2 than in their native language (L1). In these four patients the infarct was localized, either exclusively or at least partially, in the pre-rolandic region.
This pilot study suggests that, in late bilingual aphasics, syntactic judgment abilities may be more severely impaired in L2, and that this syntactic deficit is most likely to occur following anterior lesions.
双语失语症通常会影响两种语言。然而，第二语言（L2）的习得年龄似乎在句法/语法过程的解剖功能相关性中起着作用，从而可能影响中风后 L2 的句法障碍。本研究旨在分析 L2 习得年龄较晚对双语失语症患者句法障碍的影响。
12 名迟发性双语参与者（将法语作为 L2，将英语、德语、意大利语或西班牙语作为 L1）患有中风引起的失语症，参与了这项研究。使用 MAST 或 BAT 失语症电池评估整体失语症评分。开发了一个听觉句法判断任务，用于测试参与者的句法表现。
L1 和 L2 之间的整体失语症评分没有差异。在多项案例分析中，只有一名患者在 L2 中的得分较低。然而，有四名患者在 L2 的句法处理中表现明显低于母语（L1）。在这四名患者中，梗死灶位于或至少部分位于前 Rolandic 区。
这项初步研究表明，在迟发性双语失语症患者中，句法判断能力可能在 L2 中受到更严重的损害，而这种句法缺陷最有可能发生在前部病变之后。
