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The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and
Neurolinguistics 1st Edition Kara
Morgan-Short
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Understanding Formulaic Language A Second Language Acquisition Perspective Second Language Acquisition Research Series 1st Edition Anna Siyanova-Chanturia
The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Neurolinguistics is a useful resource for novices and experts alike. It provides a comprehensive compilation of expert reviews of upto-date academic research on theoretical and methodological aspects of SLA at the intersection of neurocognition and neurolinguistics.
Professor Viorica Marian, Northwestern University, USA
This volume is an invaluable, one-of-a-kind, one-stop resource for anyone interested in the neurobiological and neurocognitive bases of the acquisition of additional languages. The editors have made a titanic effort to include a wide range of methods, levels of linguistic analysis, languages, and populations, as motivated by cross-disciplinary perspectives.
Professor Cristina Sanz, Georgetown University, USA
This impressive handbook provides an authoritative in-depth overview of how cognitive neuroscience has expanded our understanding of how the brain supports the acquisition and processing of a second or third language. It is a highly recommended resource for students and scholars—and for anyone interested in how a bilingual brain works.
Professor Karsten Steinhauer, McGill University, Canada
THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND
NEUROLINGUISTICS
The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Neurolinguistics provides a comprehensive discussion of a wide range of neurocognitive and neurobiological scientific research about learning second or additional languages. It is a one-of-a-kind centralized resource that brings together research that is typically found in disperse publication venues.
Eminent global scholars from various disciplines synthesize and cross-fertilize current and past neural research about second language through systematic, in-depth, and timely chapters that discuss core issues for understanding the neurocognition of second language learning, representation, and processing. Handbook sections provide overviews of extant and emerging neuroscience methods, syntheses of neurocognitive research on second language syntax, morphosyntax, lexicon, phonology, and pragmatics, and up-to-date descriptions of theoretical approaches of the neural basis of second language learning. The volume provides additional sections that synthesize research on a variety of topics including factors that affect the neurocognition of second language, the neural mechanisms underlying second language learning, individual differences in the neurocognition of second language, as well as research on understudied languages and populations, such as sign language, child second language learners, and individuals with aphasia.
This handbook will be an indispensable resource to scholars and students across a wide range of disciplines, including those interested in second language acquisition, applied linguistics, cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience, and research methodology. It should facilitate transformative connections between ideas and disciplines and lead to informative and productive paths for future research.
Kara Morgan-Short is Professor of Hispanic Linguistics and Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago, USA. She directs the Cognition of Second Language Acquisition laboratory, has served as Associate Editor of the journal Language Learning, and has won undergraduate and graduate teaching and mentoring awards.
Janet G. van Hell is Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Linguistics and Director of the Center for Language Science at the Pennsylvania State University, USA. She has served as Editor of the Journal of Cognitive Psychology, and has received excellence in graduate student and postdoc mentoring awards.
ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOKS IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Susan M. Gass and Alison Mackey, Series Editors
Kimberly L. Geeslin, Associate Editor
The Routledge Handbooks in Second Language Acquisition are a comprehensive, must-have survey of this core sub-discipline of applied linguistics. With a truly global reach and featuring diverse contributing voices, each handbook provides an overview of both the fundamentals and new directions for each topic.
THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND WRITING
Edited by Rosa M. Manchón and Charlene Polio
THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND SPEAKING
Edited by Tracey M. Derwing, Murray J. Munro and Ron I. Thomson
THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS
Edited by Kimberly Geeslin
THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Edited by Shaofeng Li, Phil Hiver and Mostafa Papi
THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
Edited by Aline Godfroid and Holger Hopp
THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND NEUROLINGUISTICS
Edited by Kara Morgan-Short and Janet G. van Hell
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbooksin-Second-Language-Acquisition/book-series/RHSLA
THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND
The right of Kara Morgan-Short and Janet G. van Hell to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
ISBN: 978-1-032-04202-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-04205-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-19091-2 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003190912
Typeset in Times New Roman by Newgen Publishing UK
The Neurolinguistics of Second Language Learning, Representation, and
7 The Neurolinguistics of Second Language Phonology: A View of Phonemic
Emily Myers and Pamela Fuhrmeister
8 The Neurolinguistics of the Second Language Lexico-Semantic System
Natasha Tokowicz and Victoria Tkacikova
9 The Neurolinguistics of the Second Language Morphological System: The Role of Grammar-Related and Speaker-Related Factors
Nicoletta Biondo, Nicola Molinaro, and Simona Mancini 10 The Neurolinguistics of the Second Language Syntactic System
José Alemán Bañón, Robert Fiorentino, and Alison Gabriele 11 The Neurolinguistics of the Second Language Pragmatic System
Francesca M. M. Citron
12 How the Declarative and Procedural Memory Brain Circuits Support Second Language: Electrophysiological, Neuroimaging, and Neurological Evidence
Michael T. Ullman and Kara Morgan-Short
David Miller, Vincent DeLuca, Kyle Swanson, and Jason Rothman 14 Second Language Acquisition and Neuroplasticity: Insights from the Dynamic Restructuring Model
Michal Korenar and Christos Pliatsikas
15 Linguistic Relativity and Second Language: How Learning a Second Language May Reshape Cognition
Aina Casaponsa and Guillaume Thierry
16 Neurocognition of Social Learning of Second Language: How Can Second Language be Learned as First Language?
Hyeonjeong Jeong and Ping Li
CONTRIBUTORS
José Alemán Bañón is Associate Professor at the Centre for Research on Bilingualism, which is part of the Department for Swedish Language and Multilingualism at Stockholm University (Sweden). He has a PhD in linguistics from the University of Kansas. Alemán Bañón’s research, which has been funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation), examines the linguistic and cognitive factors that impact morphosyntactic processing in both native speakers and adult second language learners, in addition to the mechanisms that guide processing in both populations.
Anne L. Beatty-Martínez is Assistant Professor in the Department of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego (USA), where she directs the Bilingualism in Context Lab. Her research has two intertwined strands: one that examines how cognition supports language use and another that asks how language use impacts cognition itself. In her work, she capitalizes on the diversity and variability in people’s experiences to better understand how the mind and brain adapt to the demands of more than one language.
Nicoletta Biondo obtained a PhD in psychological sciences and education at the University of Trento (Italy) and then worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL, Spain) and at the University of Siena (Italy). She is currently a Marie SkłodowskaCurie fellow at University of California, Berkeley (USA), and at the BCBL. Her research combines theoretical linguistics and cognitive neuroscience to investigate the mechanisms involved during realtime language comprehension. Her specialty is the study of time in language. She has investigated monolingual and bilingual adult sentence comprehension with eye-tracking and event-related potentials. Currently, she is investigating comprehension in aphasia with structural neuroimaging (lesion-symptom mapping).
Harriet Wood Bowden (PhD, Georgetown University) is Associate Professor of Spanish Linguistics in the Deparment of Spanish and Linguistics at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville (USA). Her research examines first, second, and heritage language acquisition and neurocognition. She is particularly interested in understanding the interaction of multiple learner-internal and external factors influencing language learning and neurocognition, including cognitive, pedagogical, and contextual (including study abroad vs. foreign language learning contexts).
Sybrine Bultena obtained her PhD from Radboud University (Nijmegen, The Netherlands), where she currently works as Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Language and Cultures and Centre for Language Studies. She is also affiliated with the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour (The Netherlands). Using behavioral techniques and EEG, she has published on lexical processing in bilinguals, as well as error monitoring, and feedback processing in L2 learners.
Sendy Caffarra is Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy) and a visiting scholar in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University (USA). Her work is focused on how functional and structural properties of our brain change as a result of linguistic experience. Her research is placed at the intersection between neuroscience, psycholinguistics, and education.
Erin Carpenter is completing her PhD in speech-language pathology in the Center for Brain Recovery in the Department of Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences at Boston University, Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation (USA). Following her undergraduate studies at Pennsylvania State University she was admitted into the combined MS/PhD program at Boston University, where she completed clinical training in speech-language pathology. Her research focuses on investigating the behavioral and neural correlates of language and cognition in bilingual aphasia to develop theoretically motivated and clinically robust rehabilitation outcomes for bilingual individuals with aphasia.
Aina Casaponsa is Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University (UK). She studies multilingual language comprehension and production with specific focus on cross-language interactions using behavioral and electrophysiological measures. She has investigated language-selective modulators of lexical access in same- and cross-script bilinguals across the lifespan and the cognitive factors underpinning successful second language learning. Funded by the British Academy, she is also investigating the impact of language(s) in visual perception and other non-linguistic cognitive processes.
Francesca M. M. Citron is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, Lancaster University (UK). She is a a psycholinguist and cognitive neuroscientist. Her main research interests include the effects of emotive content on language processing and its neural correlates; figurative language comprehension; multilingualism, i.e., how different languages are processed by multilinguals, but also a new focus on the effects of culture and cultural identity. More recently, she has developed an interest in literary reception an appreciation, i.e., affective, cognitive, and aesthetic responses to literary texts. She uses a range of methods, from ratings and behavioral measures, to pupil dilation, electrophysiology, and neuroimaging. She is currently developing new research projects on intercultural pragmatics.
Lauren Covey is Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Montclair State University (USA). Her research interests center on sentence processing in second language learners and bilingual speakers, using psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic approaches. Her work additionally investigates how individual differences in a variety of linguistic and cognitive abilities, such as vocabulary knowledge, proficiency, working memory, and attentional resources, impact language processing.
Vincent DeLuca is Associate Professor of the Neurocognition of Bilingualism in the Department of Language and Culture at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. His research focuses primarily on how different aspects of bilingual experience affect brain structure, function, and several cognitive processes. His work focuses on how these neural and cognitive adaptations dynamically shift over
time and with changes to patterns of language use. He uses a combination of neuroimaging (e.g., EEG, MRI) and behavioral methods to examine this.
Danielle S. Dickson received her PhD in psychology from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign where she utilized EEG/ERPs to study a variety of cognitive processes, including arithmetic comprehension and language processing. She continued this work in her postdoctoral studies at The University of Texas at San Antonio and expanded her research to incorporate creative thinking and bilingualism at The Pennsylvania State University. She is currently Senior Researcher at Sandia National Laboratories (USA).
Clara Ekerdt studied psychology at American University as well as Maastricht University and received her PhD from Leipzig University, having completed her doctoral training at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour at Radboud University (The Netherlands) investigating the neural mechanisms that underlie age-related differences in L2 word learning.
Mandy Faretta-Stutenberg (PhD, University of Illinois at Chicago) is Associate Professor of Spanish Linguistics in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Northern Illinois University (USA). Her research explores the role of individual differences in learner characteristics in explaining variability in linguistic development (behavioral and neurocognitive) for learners in various learning contexts, such as study abroad, domestic immersion, classroom instruction, and various laboratory settings.
Robert Fiorentino is Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Director of the Neurolinguistics & Language Processing Laboratory at the University of Kansas (USA). He has a PhD in linguistics from the University of Maryland. Fiorentino’s research, which has been supported by the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, utilizes psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic approaches to examine the nature of linguistic representations, the mechanisms subserving language processing, and the acquisition of language in adult second language learners, with a primary focus on the domains of morphology, syntax, and semantics/pragmatics.
Alice Foucart is a full-time researcher at the Research Centre in Cognition at Nebrija University, Madrid (Spain). She obtained her PhD in psycholinguistics from the University of Edinburgh (UK) and Université de Provence (France). She worked as a post-doctorate in the UK (Heriot-Watt University, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Bangor), Spain (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), and Belgium (Ghent University). Her research focuses on language processing in first and second language. She also investigates how language influences other cognitive aspects such as decision-making, emotion processing, and social cognition. Her research involves behavioral and (electro-)physiological methodologies.
Cheryl Frenck-Mestre is Senior Researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and is currently at the University of Aix-Marseille (France). From a psycholinguistic perspective, her research centers around bilingualism and first- and second language processing, with specific areas of interest ranging from phonetics to semantics, to syntax. She investigates the neural correlates of both L2 learning and processing, including cross-language influence, using electroencephalography (event-related potentials and time-frequency analysis), eye movements, and, more recently, virtual reality.
Lauren A. Fromont obtained her PhD in biomedical sciences in 2019. She worked at University of Montreal and McGill on characterizing the neurocognitive processes underlying sentence processing in native and second language speakers. She now is the Scientific Programme Manager of the European Genome-Phenome Archive in the Centre for Genomic Regulation at the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (Spain). She focuses on data management in the mental health domain, as well as making data discoverable while preserving the participants privacy. She is also leading her own project to support institutions in adopting a gender perspective in health research.
Pamela Fuhrmeister is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Potsdam (Germany). She completed her PhD in 2020 at the University of Connecticut in the USA and was supervised by Emily Myers. Her research focuses on the cognitive and neural processes that help us perceive and produce speech, as well as learn new speech sounds. She is also interested in individual differences in speech perception and production.
Alison Gabriele is Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Director of the Second Language Acquisition Laboratory in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Kansas (USA). She has a PhD in linguistics from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Gabriele’s research, which has been supported by the National Science Foundation, focuses on the acquisition and processing of syntax and semantics in adult second language learners, focusing on the cognitive and linguistic factors that impact development.
Leah Gosselin is a PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Ottawa (Canada). She specializes in psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, and bilingualism, and is currently investigating the link between code-switching and cognition. Leah was a visiting student at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (Spain), where she completed research on accented-speech processing.
Taomei Guo is currently Professor in the State Key Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning at Beijing Normal University (P. R. China). Her research mainly focuses on the cognitive and neural mechanisms of bilingual language processing. She received her PhD from Beijing Normal University in 2004 and has been working there since then. She also worked at the Pennsylvania State University during 2007–2008, at the University of California (Riverside) during 2016–2017, and at the University of California (Los Angeles) during 2019–2020 as a visiting scholar.
Arturo E. Hernandez is currently Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Houston (USA). His main research interest is in the neural bases of bilingualism with a particular emphasis on a developmental perspective. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Recent work has looked at the role of genetics and bilingualism on the ability to flexibly adapt to different cognitive tasks. His work is also informed by his own language experience. He is a simultaneous Spanish–English bilingual who became proficient in Portuguese and German as an adult.
Hyeonjeong Jeong is Professor in the Graduate School of International Cultural Studies & Department of Human Brain Science, IDAC, at Tohoku University (Japan). Her research focuses on the brain mechanisms involved in language acquisition and communication in both native (L1) and second (L2) language contexts. Jeong is currently Associate Editor of the Journal of Neurolinguistics.
Edith Kaan received her PhD in linguistics from the University of Groningen (The Netherlands). She is currently Professor at the Linguistics Department at the University of Florida, where she co-directs the Bilingualism, Language and Brain Lab. Edith Kaan pioneered the use of event-related brain potentials to study syntactic aspects of sentence processing. Her current research interests include predictive processing and adaptation in sentence-level processing. She uses various techniques (selfpaced reading, priming, eye-tracking, EEG) in various populations (late second language learners, early bilinguals, functional monolinguals) to answer her research questions. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the Dutch Research Council.
Merel Keijzer is Professor of English Linguistics & English as a Second Language at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands). She is the PI of the Bilingualism and Aging Lab (BALAB) and works on the interfaces of multilingualism (including attrition), and cognition as well as wellbeing across the lifespan.
Swathi Kiran, PhD, CCC-SLP, is the James and Cecilia Tse Ying Professor of Neurorehabilitation in the Department of Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences at Boston University (USA). Her previous research has utilized behavioral, psycholinguistic, and neuroimaging methods to answer clinically relevant questions in aphasia rehabilitation. Additionally, she has published extensively on topics in bilingual aphasia including measuring poststroke language impairment and predicting language treatment outcomes.
Denise Klein is Scientist and Neuropsychologist in the Cognitive Neuroscience Unit at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), and Professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University (Canada). She is the Director of the Centre for Research on Brain, Language, and Music (CRBLM). She obtained her PhD at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Klein came to the MNI in 1992 as a postdoctoral fellow to work with Brenda Milner. Klein’s current research program aims to understand how language experience influences and shapes brain organization.
Michal Korenar is Assistant Professor at the Department of Dutch Studies within the Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication at the University of Amsterdam, and he works at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers (The Netherlands). He seeks to understand how and whether the transformative experience of multilingualism can serve our societies in, for example, delaying neural and cognitive decline or boosting creative potential. Being awarded several personal and collaborative grants, Michal Korenar investigated the neuroscience of creativity and multilingualism in research labs worldwide.
Shanna Kousaie is Assistant Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Ottawa, where she is the Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Bilingualism Laboratory. She obtained her PhD from Concordia University and pursued postdoctoral training at the Bruyère Research Institute and the MNI. Kousaie’s research aims to understand the interaction between language experience and cognition using a multi-method approach that includes behavioral, electrophysiological, and neuroimaging measures.
Ioulia Kovelman is Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan. As a developmental cognitive neuroscientist, Kovelman uses behavioral and neuroimaging methods, especially optical fNIRS neuroimaging, to understand the effects of bilingualism on children’s language, literacy, and
brain development. Her research focuses on bilinguals learning typologically distinct languages, Spanish, English, and Chinese. Through this work, Kovelman addresses questions about the universal, language-specific, and bilingual influences on child language and reading development in neurotypical and at-risk learners.
Ping Li is Sin Wai Kin Professor in Humanities and Technology, Chair Professor of Neurolinguistics and Bilingual Studies, and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research uses cognitive neuroscience and computational methods to study language acquisition, bilingualism, and reading comprehension in both children and adults. Li is currently Editor-in-Chief of Brain and Language and Senior Editor of Cognitive Science. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Alicia Luque is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of Applied Language Studies at Nebrija University as well as a full-time researcher at Nebrija’s Research Center in Cognition (CINC) in Madrid (Spain). She obtained her PhD in Hispanic linguistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago (USA). Before joining Nebrija University, she worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in psycho/neurolinguistics of bi/multilingualism at UiT The Arctic University of Norway (Norway). Her research interests center on examining the various individual factors that contribute to proficient adult language learning and gaining a deeper understanding of how diverse bi/multilingual experiences impact linguistic, socio-affective, and neurocognitive function. Luque’s work primarily investigates adult second/third language acquisition and heritage speaker bilingualism, utilizing psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic theories and methods to explore the underlying mechanisms supporting bilingual language processing, as well as the universality and diversity behind adult language learning outcomes across the continuum of bi/multilingualism.
Fengyang Ma is Associate Professor–Educator in the School of Education at the University of Cincinnati. Her research interests center on the investigation of bilingualism from psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic perspectives. She received her PhD from Tsinghua University. Then, she worked at the Pennsylvania State University as a postdoctoral visiting scholar and research assistant in the Center for Language Science and the Social, Life, and Engineering Sciences Imaging Center. From 2015 till now, she has been working in the Center for English as a Second Language at the University of Cincinnati.
Simona Mancini obtained her PhD in cognitive science from the University of Siena (Italy). She is a Ramón y Cajal fellow and leads the Neurolinguistics and Aphasia Group at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language. Her work lies at the intersection between theoretical linguistics and cognitive neuroscience, with the goal of unveiling language architectural principles and its neurobiological foundations using a wide range of experimental techniques (eye tracking, EEG, and fMRI) and populations (adult monolingual but also second-language and language-impaired speakers).
Gabrielle Manning is a PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Ottawa. She specializes in psycholinguistic research on bilingualism and second language acquisition. Specifically, she focuses on grammatical gender processing in second language French speakers. Emphasis is placed on the way speakers learn their second language and the age at which they are immersed in it.
Clara D. Martin is Ikerbasque Research Professor and the Leader of the ‘Speech and Bilingualism’ research group at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (Spain). Her research group’s main objective is to explore the relationship between speech perception and production as well as
study language interactions in the bilingual mind. The research group investigates factors that impact multilingual speech processing, and how to influence and optimize second language sound and word learning. The group also explores bilingual language control, assessing language interference in multilinguals on the sound, word and sentence level in speech perception and production. The research group also focuses on the impact of orthographic systems on speech sounds and words on perception and production across modalities, languages, and populations.
James M. McQueen studied experimental psychology at the University of Oxford and obtained his PhD from the University of Cambridge. He has held appointments at the MRC Applied Psychology Unit, Cambridge, and the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen. He is currently Professor of Speech and Learning at Radboud University and Principal Investigator at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour (The Netherlands). He is a member of the Academia Europaea. His research is focused on how the building blocks of spoken language—its sounds and words—are used in communication, primarily in speech recognition, and on how they are learned, in L1 and L2.
Gabriela Meade is Assistant Professor in Speech Pathology and Research Associate in the Department of Neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota (USA). She has a strong interest in the neural representation of languages, as revealed by studying second language learning, signed languages, and neurodegenerative speech and language disorders.
David Miller is Assistant Professor of Spanish in the Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago (USA). His research interests include language acquisition and processing, psycholinguistics, the psychology of multilingualism, and the effects of bi- and multilingualism on behavior. His recent work has been published in Journal of Neurolinguistics, Applied Psycholinguistics, and Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.
Nicola Molinaro completed his PhD in cognitive science in 2007 at the University of Padova (Italy), and then moved to the University of La Laguna (Tenerife, Spain) and later to Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (Spain) as a postdoc. In 2014, he was granted with a five-years Ikerbasque Fellowship being promoted to Ikerbasque Research Professor in 2023. He is now group leader of the Brain Rhythms and Cognition research group. The group explores how the brain encodes visual, auditory, and linguistic rhythms by focusing on neural oscillatory activity. Based on this approach we investigate predictive processing in language comprehension, music processing, and visual and attentional processes. These research lines merge into the more general goal of detecting oscillatory neural components that lead to the development of language disorders across the lifespan.
Kara Morgan-Short is Professor in the Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies and the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago (USA) where she directs the Cognition of Second Language Acquisition Laboratory. Informed by the fields of linguistics, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience, her research aims to elucidate the neurocognitive processes underlying adult-learned language acquisition and use. Her work is published in a range of journals from Language Learning to Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. She has served as Associate Editor for Language Learning, currently serves on various editorial boards, and is the recipient of awards for teaching and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students.
Malayka Mottarella is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Cognitive Psychology at the University of Washington (USA). She received her BA in psychology from Willamette University
and her MS in psychology from the University of Washington. Her research uses neuroscience techniques, including EEG and MRI, to understand the factors driving individual differences in complex skill performance and acquisition among healthy adults.
Emily Myers is Professor in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Science and the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Connecticut (USA). Her work focuses on a fundamental question in human behavior: How do listeners perceive the speech signal in order to map it to meaning? Using neuroimaging methods (fMRI, ERP) together with standard psycholinguistic measures, work in her lab aims to understand the neural and behavioral mechanisms that underlie this process.
Anushka Oak completed her undergraduate career at the University of Houston with a BS in biology and a BA in Spanish. She is currently a fulbright scholar doing predoctoral cognitive neuroscience research in Spain and upon return will begin her doctorate at Georgetown University’s Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience (USA).
Valeria Ortiz-Villalobos is a PhD student in the Combined Program in Education and Psychology at the University of Michigan (USA). As an educational psychologist, she studies language and literacy development in young bilinguals, with a special emphasis on Spanish-speaking children, including heritage Spanish speakers in the USA. She is also interested in the role of the home language and literacy environment in shaping children’s school readiness. She collaborates with Kovelman and Satterfield in research related to the understanding of language representations in the bilingual brain in early childhood.
Nick B. Pandža is Assistant Research Scientist at the University of Maryland Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (USA) and affiliated with the Program in Second Language Acquisition and the Language Science Center. He has also served as Lecturer in Brain and Language at the George Washington University and MRI Technician at the University of Maryland Neuroimaging Center. His work has primarily focused on the impact of individual differences on language processing and learning outcomes using advanced statistical methods with behavioral, psychophysiological, and neurocognitive data.
Eric Pelzl earned his PhD at the University of Maryland and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Center for Language Science at The Pennsylvania State University. He recently started a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research utilizes psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic (ERP) methods to investigate first and second language speech perception and comprehension.
Christos Pliatsikas is Associate Professor in Psycholinguistics in Bi-/Multilinguals at the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading (United Kingdom), and the Chair of the International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB). He is on the Editorial Board of Bilingualism, Language and Cognition, and of Frontiers in Language Sciences, section Bilingualism. His work focuses on experience-based neuroplasticity, with a primary interest on the effects of bi-/multilingualism on brain structure and function, including in brain development and ageing.
Chantel S. Prat is Professor at the University of Washington (USA) with appointments in the Departments of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Linguistics, and at the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, the Center for Neurotechnology, and the Institute for Neuroengineering. She earned
her PhD at U.C. Davis and completed her postdoctoral work at Carnegie Mellon. Her interdisciplinary research investigates the biological basis of individual differences in cognition, with an emphasis on understanding the shared neural mechanisms underpinning language and higher-level executive functions.
Eleonora Rossi is Assistant Professor in the Departments of Linguistics and Psychology at the University of Florida (USA). The overarching goal of her work is to understand the earliest neurocognitive markers of second language acquisition and the long-lasting neuroplasticity induced by bilingualism. Her work encompasses behavioral, cognitive, and neuroimaging techniques such as EEG (TFRs, ERPs, RS-EEG) and magnetic resonance imaging methodologies.
Jason Rothman is Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Language and Culture and UiT The Arctic University of Norway, and Adjunct Professor at Universidad Nebrija (Spain). His research deals with language acquisition and processing across the life span, especially in various types of bilingualism and multilingualism. He researches the mutually beneficial, bi-directional relationship between formal linguistic theory and experimental methods/evidence from psycho- and neurolinguistics. His recent work has been published in International Journal of Bilingualism, Brain Sciences, and Frontiers in Psychology.
Laura Sabourin is Associate Professor in Linguistics at the University of Ottawa (Canada) and the Director of the ERP Linguistics (ERPLing) Lab. She received her PhD from the University of Groningen. She specializes in the psycholinguistics of second language acquisition with a focus on grammatical gender, executive functioning skills, lexical access, and language transfer. In her research she investigates the roles that age of immersion and manner of acquisition play in second language use and processing.
Teresa Satterfield is Professor of Romance Linguistics, Linguistics and Combined Program of Education and Psychology at the University of Michigan (USA). She is a psycholinguist and part of the En Nuestra Lengua research group. Her areas of investigation include morphosyntactic development in bilingual children, language representations in the bilingual brain, and (socio)linguistic questions concerning heritage (Spanish) language development. Extensions of her research program include heritage language literacy and advocacy for heritage language speakers. She is Founder and Director of the heritage Spanish academic program “En Nuestra Lengua Literacy and Culture Project (ENL)” for Spanish-speaking students in Southeastern Michigan.
Michael Scimeca is a PhD candidate in the Department of Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences at Boston University (USA). While completing his clinical training in speech-language pathology, he developed an interest in aphasia rehabilitation after providing clinical care to bilingual adults with language impairment. His research incorporates both behavioral and psycholinguistic perspectives to improve rehabilitation outcomes for bilinguals with aphasia.
Bregtje Seton is a PhD student in the Department of English Language and Culture at the University of Groningen and Psychometric Researcher at Cito in The Netherlands. She has done research on bilingualism, attrition, psycholinguistics, and neurolinguistics, and has taught courses on these topics as well as on statistics. She is co-author of the course book Essential Statistics for Applied Linguistics.
Kyle Swanson (PhD) Department of Second Language Studies, Indiana University Bloomington) is Continuing Lecturer in the Oral English Proficiency Program at Purdue University (USA). His
research leverages generative approaches to language alongside psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic methods to characterize how adult L2 learners apply their grammatical knowledge to understand sentences in real time. His recent work has been published in the proceedings of BUCLD 46, Journal of Neurolinguistics, and PLOS ONE.
Atsuko Takashima studied medicine at Tsukuba University and worked as Psychiatrist at Tokyo Metropolitan Hiroo General Hospital. At the same time, she followed a clinical research program at Tokyo Medical and Dental University and obtained her PhD in medical sciences. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at Radboud University (The Netherlands) investigating memory consolidation using neuroimaging techniques with a focus on word acquisition.
Guillaume Thierry is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the School of Human and Behavioural Sciences, Bangor University (UK), and Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University (Poland). He studies auditory and visual language comprehension and production. Funded by the BBSRC, the ESRC, the AHRC, the ERC, and the British Academy, he has investigated meaning integration in infants and adults at lexical, syntactic, and conceptual levels, using behavioral measurements, ERPs, eye-tracking, and fMRI, in different sensory modalities, different languages, and different coding systems (verbal / nonverbal). Thierry’s core research question is how the human brain crystallizes knowledge and builds up a meaningful representation of the world around it. He now focuses on linguistic relativity and language–emotion interactions in communication and decision-making.
Trisha Thomas is a PhD student at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language and the University of the Basque Country (Spain), approaching PhD in cognitive neuroscience. Her research focuses on how interlocutor identity affects information processing and memory.
Debra A. Titone is Professor of Psychology and Canada Research Chair in Language & Multilingualism at McGill University (Canada). She is an active member of the Centre for Research in Brain, Language and Music, and the current leader of the Montréal Bilingualism Initiative. Her work investigates a variety of questions pertaining to language use: How people comprehend and produce the languages that they know and how they read, learn novel linguistic forms, or use formulaic or metaphoric language. She examines these questions across different domains and uses varied methods, most notably eye-tracking studies of reading but also neuroscience and computational methods.
Victoria Tkacikova received a BA in psychology and English from Binghamton University. She earned an MS in cognitive psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. She is currently pursuing her PhD in cognitive psychology in the Department of Psychology and the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh (USA). Her research examines individual differences in adult second language learning and the effectiveness of second language instructional methods.
Natasha Tokowicz received a BA in psychology with a minor in Spanish from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She earned an MS and PhD in cognitive psychology from The Pennsylvania State University. She completed postdoctoral fellowships at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh prior to beginning a faculty appointment at the University of Pittsburgh in 2004. She is currently Associate Dean for Equity, Faculty Development, and Community Engagement
in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of Psychology and Linguistics and Senior Scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh (USA), with an appointment in the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. Her research combines behavioral and cognitive neuroscientific methodologies to address questions about adult second language learning and bilingualism. Her book Lexical Processing and Second Language Acquisition was published by Routledge.
Michael T. Ullman is Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Georgetown University (USA), with secondary appointments in the Departments of Neurology and Psychology. He is the Director of the Brain and Language Laboratory and the Director of Medical Neuroscience at Georgetown University Medical School. He teaches undergraduate, masters, PhD, and medical students. His research examines the neurocognition of first and second language, math, reading, and memory; how these domains are affected in various disorders (e.g., autism, dyslexia, developmental language disorder, aphasia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s diseases); and how they may be modulated by factors such as genetic variability, sex, handedness, and aging.
Janet G. van Hell is Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Linguistics at the Pennsylvania State University (USA) and also serves as the Director of the Center for Language Science. Funded (mainly) by the National Science Foundation, her research focuses on the neural and cognitive processes related to diversity and variability in language use and experience in L2 learners and monolingual, bilingual, and bidialectal speakers. She combines neuropsychological and behavioral techniques to study patterns of L2 learning, cross-language interaction, codeswitching, creative language use, and accented-speech processing.
Kelly A. Vaughn is Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the Children’s Learning Institute, part of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (USA). She received her graduate training in the neural bases of bilingualism under the mentorship of Arturo Hernandez. Now, her research uses neuroimaging to understand and support early language and cognitive development, particularly for bilingual children. Her current research, focused on bilingual development in toddlers who were born preterm, is funded by the National Institutes of Health Office of the Director’s Tackling Acquisition of Language in Kids (TALK) initiative (2023–2025).
Toms Voits is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) and UiT The Arctic University of Norway. His research interests lie at the intersection of linguistics, language sciences, and cognitive neuroscience. He is most interested in understanding the neurocognitive effects of bi-/ multilingualism (among other types of learning and lifestyle experiences), especially in the later years of life and on clinical neurodegeneration. His research employs a combination of behavioral and neuroimaging (EEG/MRI) methods.
Patrick Chun Man Wong is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Linguistics and Founding Director of Brain and Mind Institute at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He received his degrees in linguistics and cognitive psychology from the University of Texas at Austin and completed postdoctoral training in neuroscience at the University of Chicago. Wong conducts interdisciplinary research on cultural and biological factors that influence language and cognition, utilizing methods ranging from brain imaging to field research. A Guggenheim fellow, Wong, has published over 100 research papers with media reports in outlets such as The New York Times and Scientific American
Emily Shimeng Xu is a postdoctoral associate of the Division of Pediatric Otolaryngology at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago (USA). Xu received her Master of Science degree in education with a focus on educational linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania and her Master of Arts degree in linguistics from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, where she completed her doctoral study on neurolinguistics and received her PhD degree in 2022. Xu’s research is focused on investigating the neurocognitive mechanisms of language acquisition and processing using complementary behavioral methods and neuroimaging techniques such as EEG and fNIRS.
Ana Zappa is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellow at the Department of Cognition, Development and Educational Psychology at the University of Barcelona (Spain). Her research focuses on the role of embodied semantics and social interaction in second language learning. She is particularly interested in examining the neural correlates of such using EEG, combined with virtual reality, as a means of providing learners with more ecologically valid environments.
Overview
1 SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND NEUROLINGUISTICS A Synthesis of Perspectives
Janet G. van Hell and Kara Morgan-Short
Introduction
Learning a second or additional language (L2) is arguably one of the most complex learning tasks for the human mind. Research that examines how human brains and minds learn, process, and use languages brings us closer to a comprehensive understanding not only of language learning, but also of how our minds and brains learn complex information more generally. The Routledge Handbook on Second Language Acquisition and Neurolinguistics presents a current, comprehensive account of state-of-the-art knowledge on neural approaches to L2 learning, processing, and use. This handbook provides thorough overviews of theoretical and methodological L2 neurolinguistic approaches and in-depth considerations of a range of linguistic and cognitive topics related to the neurocognition of L2 learning. The brain-based focus on L2 learning and processing uniquely positions this handbook among preceding works published in the series of Routledge Handbooks in Second Language Acquisition, including the Routledge Handbook on Second Language Acquisition and Psycholinguistics, the Routledge Handbook on Second Language Acquisition and Sociolinguistics, and the Routledge Handbook on Second Language Acquisition and Individual Differences.
Since the mid to late 1990s, brain-based research addressing the question of how individuals learn, process, and use L2 has grown exponentially. An interesting aspect of brain-based research on L2 learning, processing, and use is that it is pursued by researchers working in a wide range of scientific disciplines, including neuroscience, psychology, applied linguistics, linguistics, and modern languages. These researchers often attend and present their research at different professional conferences and publish their research across a wide range of outlets that range from journals in (applied) linguistics to neuroscience journals. However, there are not centralized resources and venues that aggregate brain-based research on L2. We believe that the Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Neurolinguistics will serve as a resource that brings together state-of-the-art knowledge about the brain and L2 from across a range of disciplines and research topics. By bringing together outstanding scholars working at the forefront of brain-based research on L2, we aim to offer readers a centralized, comprehensive resource about L2 neurolinguistic research that serves the purpose of (a) revealing the range of L2 neurolinguistic research; (b) providing state-of-the-art overviews of extant L2 neurolinguistic topics; (c) establishing future directions for neurolinguistic research on these topics; and (d) facilitating transformative connections between ideas and between researchers.
Acknowledging disciplinary differences in terminology, and embracing an inclusive approach, in our role as editors we respected authors’ preferred terminology and did not impose a uniform vocabulary in the handbook. Consequently, terms like acquisition, learning, and development may be used interchangeably or differently across the chapters, as is true for neurolinguistics, neurocognition, cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology, and neurobiology. Additionally, we allowed the internal organization of the chapters to vary to some extent so that our expert authors could most effectively structure the information that they wanted to convey for their topic. Thus, although core methodological, theoretical, and empirical research is always provided, there is some variability among the chapters within each section, for example, whether historical information or applied implications are presented. At the same time, we made a concerted effort to consistently optimize accessibility to the specific topics discussed in each chapter, with the underlying goal being to maximize the scope of the handbook’s readership. Inevitably, background knowledge may be needed to fully comprehend a given chapter, and readers are encouraged to consult resources provided as references in the text or in the further readings section at the end of each chapter.
Research Themes and Perspectives Within Neurolinguistic Research on L2 Learning, Processing, and Use
Historically, our initial insights into the neural basis of using two languages were provided by experiments of nature: individuals whose language use was affected by a stroke or other acquiredbrain injury, known as aphasia. In their pioneering work on language loss in bilingual aphasia, Ribot and Pitres argued that language loss does not manifest itself in the same degree of severity in both languages, but rather occurs asymmetrically, with one language more affected than the other. According to Ribot’s (1887) law, the earlier acquired language (native language, L1) is preserved better after acquired brain injury. In contrast, Pitres’s (1895) law states that the individual’s dominant language before the injury is less affected by brain injury, whether or not this is the individual’s L1. Such asymmetry also emerges in recovery patterns following brain injury, which led Paradis (1977) to identify six different recovery patterns. (For more details on historical and current clinical and theoretical perspectives on bilingual aphasia, see Scimeca, Carpenter, & Kiran, this volume.)
Over time, the development of neurocognitive techniques to study the intact brain, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG), led to significant advances in brain-based research on language processing. Here we highlight several main research themes that have guided empirical studies that used neurocognitive methods to examine L2 learning, processing, and use, published since the mid to late 1990s: (a) the neural basis for critical periods in L2 learning and variability in other learner-related individual difference variables; (b) the neural organization of the bilingual brain; (c) patterns of crosslinguistic interaction and transfer in the bilingual mind and brain; (d) how language learning experience and learning context impact the neurocognitive basis of L2 processing; (e) whether and how L2 learning induces changes in cognitive processing and neural structures; (f) whether and how the neural underpinnings and mechanisms of L2 processing differ from those of L1 processing.
Whether there is a critical period for language learning is a longstanding and fundamental question in human development and learning in general (Penfield & Roberts, 1959) and for L2 learning in particular (e.g., Lenneberg, 1967). In fact, Science identified the question “Why are there critical periods for language learning?” as one of the 125 critical questions for the next 25 years (Kennedy & Norman, 2005). In the context of the critical period hypothesis for L2 learning, neurocognitive studies sought to identify the existence of a biologically constrained critical period for L2 learning, after which learners are unable to acquire and process their L2 in a way that is qualitatively similar to L1 native speakers. Questions that guided this research included whether patterns of L2 learning and processing are driven by age of L2 acquisition or L2 proficiency, using the native-speaker benchmark
to interpret L2 learners’ neural organization (for a review, see Van Hell, 2023). These questions continue to inspire current research (see, for example, the handbook chapters by Fromont, this volume; Myers & Fuhrmeister, this volume; as well as Alemán Bañón, Fiorentino, & Gabriele, this volume; Biondo, Molinaro, & Mancini, this volume; Miller, DeLuca, Swanson, & Rothman, this volume), but have also evolved in more nuanced approaches the past decades. For example, researchers acknowledge that patterns of L2 learning and processing are affected by many other factors beyond age of acquisition and L2 proficiency, such as L2 learning experience (e.g., see Beatty-Martínez & Titone, this volume; Bowden & Faretta-Stutenberg, this volume; Korenar & Pliatsikas, this volume) and individual variability in genetic factors (Vaughn, Oak, & Hernandez, this volume) as well as cognitive functions, language learning aptitude, and motivation (see Grey, Fox, Serafini & Sanz, 2015; Ekerdt, Takashima, & McQueen, this volume; Luque & Covey, this volume; Mottarella & Prat, this volume). These insights have also inspired researchers to acknowledge that L2 learning trajectories are multifaceted, and that their complexity should be embraced rather than narrowed down to an idealized native speaker benchmark (cf. Van Hell, in press, and associated commentaries).
A second major field of inquiry inspired by early studies on the neural basis of L2 learning and processing pertains to the neural organization of languages in the bilingual brain (Kousaie & Klein, this volume). Decades of research have been summarized in recently published meta-analyses on the neural areas that are associated with bilinguals’ processing of phonology, lexico-semantics, and grammar in L1 and L2 (Sulpizio et al., 2020), the impact of AoA and L2 proficiency on language representation in the bilingual brain (Cargnelutti et al., 2019), and the neural correlates of lexical and grammatical learning in experimentally controlled language training studies (Tagarelli et al., 2019). For example, Sulpizio et al.’s (2020) meta-analysis concluded that bilinguals’ lexico-semantic processing in L1, as compared to L2, is associated with a widespread activation pattern of corticosubcortical regions (largely overlapping with the semantic network identified for monolingual language processing), whereas lexico-semantic processing in L2, as compared to L1, is more constrained and involves activation of regions associated with cognitive control-related functions (see also Tokowicz & Tkacikova, this volume). In contrast, the neural regions involved in bilinguals’ grammar processing overlapped to some extent in the L1 and L2 comparisons and mainly engaged frontal/ basal ganglia networks that have been associated with procedural-related circuits (see also Ullman & Morgan-Short, this volume). Neural structures involved in bilinguals’ phonological processing in L1 and L2 also overlapped to some extent, and involved frontal regions (more widespread for L2) that are key components of the dorsal pathway in dual-stream models of speech processing (e.g., Hickok & Poeppel, 2007; Saur et al., 2008). Tagarelli et al.’s meta-analysis synthesized the neuroimaging literature on lexical and grammar learning in experimentally controlled language training studies. They found that lexical and grammar learning yielded overlapping activation in frontal and posterior parietal regions. They further found that only lexical learning showed ventral occipitotemporal activation (ventral pathway in dual-stream models of speech processing), whereas only grammar learning showed basal ganglia activation (associated with procedural learning functions; see also Ullman & Morgan-Short, this volume).
Another central question in neurocognitive and psycholinguistic research on L2 learning, processing, and use is the impact of the native language, or L1. Such crosslinguistic influences and transfer are pervasive at all levels of language processing, including phonology, lexico-semantics, morphology, syntax, and pragmatics. Dissimilarities and similarities between L1 and L2 systems are at the root of negative and positive transfer effects (for reviews, see Caffarra et al., 2015; Kroll et al., 2015; McManus, 2021). Furthermore, crosslinguistic influences surface across a wide range of L2 learners and bilinguals, including dual language learners (see Ortiz-Villalobos, Kovelman, & Satterfield, this volume), heritage speakers, early and late L2 learners at different levels of L2 proficiency, as well as individuals who experience attrition (Keijzer & Seton, this volume; see also
Bergmann et al., 2015; Steinhauer & Kasparian, 2020). Crosslinguistic influences also surface across languages in different modalities (e.g., Lee et al., 2019; Meade, this volume), from L1/L2 to third language (L3) and subsequent languages (Cabrelli et al., 2023; Xu & Wong, this volume), and from the weaker to the stronger language and vice versa (Sabourin & Manning, this volume). This handbook highlights brain-based research that seeks to understand the neural basis of, and mechanism associated with, crosslinguistic interaction and transfer in L2 learning, processing, and use; this theme emerges in the aforementioned chapters and in many others, including chapters discussing foreignaccented speech comprehension (Caffarra, Gosselin, Thomas, & Martin, this volume), phonological (Myers & Fuhrmeister, this volume; Marian et al., 2017), lexico-semantic (Tokowicz & Tkacikova, this volume), morphological (Biondo, Molinaro, & Mancini, this volume), syntactic (Alemán Bañón, Fiorentino, & Gabriele, this volume), and pragmatic (Citron, this volume) processing, as well as in child L2 learning (Ortiz-Villalobos, Kovelman, & Satterfield, this volume).
An additional critical question in L2 learning and bilingualism behavioral research that is now being addressed by brain-based approaches is how the varied contexts in which additional languages are learned and used (e.g., classroom, study abroad, immersion, and contexts with different patterns of bilingual and multilingual use) shape how they may be represented and processed on a neural level. In regard to learning additional languages, an instructed context that provides metalinguistic information about the L2 may lead to learning that is supported by different neural substrates and processes as compared to uninstructed contexts such as immersion (see Jeong & Li, this volume). The growing empirical literature on this topic will certainly have implications for theoretical perspectives of the neural basis of L2, as not all theories have fully accounted for context (see more in Bowden & Faretta-Stutenberg, this volume). Even more specifically, within any particular learning context, learners are likely to receive different types of L2 feedback, which is minimally understood from a neurolinguistic perspective. Leveraging the vast body of EEG literature on the neural mechanisms of feedback in domains other than language, along with the substantial body of behavioral research about L2 feedback, promises to reveal new insights into the specific neural mechanisms that contribute to feedback-driven L2 learning (Bultena, this volume). More broadly speaking, adapting a framework, such as de-generacy (Beatty-Martínez & Titone, this volume), to understand the complex experiences of learning and using additional languages should provide a greater understanding of variability in language use and language control among individuals in different contexts.
A fifth question that has gained considerable research interest in the past decades is whether and how L2 learning induces changes in cognitive processing and neural structures. Moving beyond the heated “bilingual advantage” debate—the contested notion that bilingualism improves performance in other cognitive domains, in particular executive functioning (e.g., Antoniou, 2019; De Bruin et al., 2021; Kroll & Bialystok, 2013; Paap et al., 2015, and commentaries), brain-based research has sought to unravel how L2 learning experience and the frequent use of two or more languages impact the neural underpinnings and mechanisms of language control and domain-general cognitive tasks (Bialystok & Craik, 2022; Guo & Ma, this volume; Tao et al., 2021; Zirnstein et al., 2018), induce structural changes in the brain (Korenar & Pliatsikas, this volume), or reshape the L2 learner’s conceptualization of the world (Casaponsa & Thierry, this volume; Zappa & Frenck-Mestre, this volume).
A final question highlighted here pertains to the ways in which the neural underpinnings and mechanisms of language processing are different for L2 processing as compared to L1 processing. More specifically, there is an emergent literature, as reviewed by Kaan (this volume) that observed that predictive processing in L2 sentence processing is different from that in L1 sentence processing (see also Alemán Bañón, Fiorentino, & Gabriele, this volume; Beatty-Martínez & Titone, this volume; Sabourin & Manning, this volume). Relatedly, anticipatory affective processing, that is, how the brain prepares for an upcoming emotional event, also seems contingent upon the language of operation
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VIII MIRA, THE WONDERFUL STAR
The head of Cetus, the Sea-Monster, is formed of three stars in a crooked line (α, γ, δ); and a little beyond them, as far from δ as that is from α, you may sometimes see another star, marked on the map by the name “Mira,” which means “Wonderful.” Watch it carefully, and if it is on the upward grade you will see it slowly brighten until it equals δ, then γ, and if you are lucky it may even approach α in brightness; and meanwhile it will pass from red to a clear orange-yellow; then it will wane once more and gradually be lost to view, though you can follow it much longer in even a small opera-glass, and you will notice that as it grows fainter the colour becomes deeper and deeper crimson.
Unlike η Argūs with its one brilliant phase in two centuries, Mira waxes and wanes once in every eleven months, although there is a capricious uncertainty in both the period and the brightness which makes her a most fascinating object to observe. Sometimes the maximum brightness is several days earlier, sometimes later, than the average; sometimes she only equals δ, she has been seen to excel α; and no one can foretell exactly what and when her maximum will be.
Quite a number of other stars have been discovered which behave like Mira, and anyone who wishes to contribute something to astronomical research without having to buy large and expensive instruments, or to study difficult problems, cannot do better than observe some of these stars, carefully comparing them night after night with stars in the neighbourhood. Here is a list of a few southern “variable stars of long period,” as they are called, all of which are easily visible at maximum brightness with a binocular, and some even without. A map should be made of the surrounding stars, and a list drawn up of those which are of the different magnitudes through which the variable passes. Every fine night the star should be compared with these, and recorded in a note-book as brighter than one, fainter than others, perhaps equal to another, and so on, several comparisons being made to check each other When the variable passes out of the range of the binocular, this should be noted. The British Astronomical Association, which has a branch in Australia, has a Variable-star Section, and anyone who
becomes a member will receive ready help and advice, and may have the pleasure of feeling that he is doing useful work in astronomy.
Most long-period variables are red stars of the Antarian or of the carbon star classes with banded spectra, but they differ from ordinary red stars by occasionally showing bright lines, which indicate an uprush of intensely hot hydrogen gas in their atmospheres. These bright lines always appear at times of maximum, and prove that the star periodically undergoes some physical change: but what is the nature and the cause of this change? It can scarcely be due to the near approach of a satellite, because of the irregularity in the time of maximum. There is a certain resemblance between the way in which the light waxes and wanes and the waxing and waning in the number of sunspots on the sun, and spectra of these Mira stars also somewhat resemble sunspot spectra: can it be that our sun is an incipient variable star with a period of about eleven years? It is true that sunspots seem to be cooler rather than hotter regions on the sun, but a time of maximum spots is also a time of maximum activity; slightly more heat is actually radiating, the corona is brighter and larger, and the bright scarlet flames of hydrogen and calcium which we call prominences are larger and more abundant. Possibly it is a tremendous display of these on Mira which makes the hydrogen lines bright at maximum.
S S V S
Name. Maximum Magnitude. Minimum Magnitude. Period. Remarks.
R Sculptoris 6.2 8.8 376½ A red “carbonstar.”
R Leporis 6.1 9.7 436 Crimson. A “carbon star.” Oserved from 1852 to 1883, but very few observations published since, so new work would be valuable.
T Centauri 6.5 8.0 90¼ Period unusually short for this class of variables.
R Centauri 5.3 13.0 568 An Antarian star.Double max. and min. The secondary min. about mag. 8½.
Name. Maximum Magnitude. Minimum Magnitude. Period. Remarks.
7.8 ? Bright and faint minima, usually alternative. Period perhaps irregular.
366
Sculptoris
405
Puppis 3.4
140 or longer R Carinae 4.5
309 Antarian stars. Spectra very similar to that of Mira. S Carinae
148
425
387
Against this suggestion we must set the fact that no stars have been found to link together the slow and slight change represented by the sunspot period with the rapid and violent change suffered by Mira variables. Their periods, though never less than three months, are never more than two years, and the light radiated by Mira at maximum sometimes amounts to five thousand times as much as at a faint minimum.
Nevertheless, the fact that these perplexing stars are a link in an unbroken chain of which our sun also forms part suggests that research on the sun, our nearest star, will some day help us to understand more about Mira and stars like Mira.
ECLIPSING STARS
There is another type of variables quite distinct from the Mira stars. These run through smaller light-changes in much shorter periods, also they change abruptly with clockwork regularity, and the spectrum shows no bright lines at maximum, indicative of physical change.
The first known was Algol, the Ghoul or Demon Star in Perseus, and the brightest southern star of the Algol type is δ Librae. It shines steadily for a little more than two days as a fifth-magnitude star, then in a few hours drops suddenly to below sixth magnitude, becoming invisible to the naked eye, and as quickly recovers its usual brightness. The entire change takes place regularly in less than two and a half days.
A few bright Algol stars in the south are: S A
Altogether nearly a hundred Algol stars are now known, and seventy-four of these lie in or near the Milky Way.
Unlike the mysterious Mira stars, the variation of Algol stars has been explained. The sudden drop in the light is a partial eclipse, caused by a dark or partly dark companion which for a time hides the bright star from us. When a source of light is coming towards us, the lines in its spectrum are shifted towards the violet, when going away they are shifted towards the red, exactly as the whistle of an engine becomes more shrill when approaching us, and falls to a lower pitch when going away. In this way it has been discovered that an Algol star is revolving round an invisible companion, for it alternately approaches and recedes, and these movements correspond with its light-changes. It is, in fact, a spectroscopic binary which happens to have an orbit whose plane lies just in our line of sight, so that at every revolution one star passes behind the other.
The speed of the star in its orbit can be accurately determined (by the amount of shift in the spectrum lines) in miles per second, even when we do not know its distance from us; hence the size of its orbit can be calculated, since we know the period in which it is completed; and, further, the size of the orbit gives us the mass of the stars, for their movements depend upon the attraction they exercise over one another, and this is proportional to their mass; and so we are able to picture the system, although the eclipsing star is never seen and the distance from us may never be known. Here is indeed a triumph of modern astronomy.
Very curious are the systems thus discovered. Algol stars are extraordinarily light for their size, their density being always less, and sometimes immensely less, than that of water, and the companions
are usually extraordinarily close together In some pairs they seem to be actually touching. Nearly all are Sirian stars; a few are of Orion and solar types.
Sometimes the companion star gives light also, instead of being dark, and then we have a different type of variation. There are two eclipses in one revolution, each star passing alternately behind the other, but neither is a very dark eclipse, only a lessening of light. β Lyrae was the first star of this kind to be discovered; its southern counterpart is U Scuti, which varies from magnitude 9.1 to 9.6, and runs through its two maxima and two minima in less than twentythree hours! It is a Sirian star.
SHORT-PERIOD VARIABLE STARS
Another extremely interesting class of variable stars runs through the periods as punctually as the Algol stars, but the light is varying up and down the whole time without any period of steadiness. The length, too, is often much greater, though not nearly so great as that of the Mira variables.
Here are a few stars of this class bright enough to be observed with a binocular, at least at maximum:
S S - V
The three first on the list have been discovered to be spectroscopic binaries, the motions varying with the light, and as this is found to be the case with all those whose motions are known, there can be little doubt that all variables of this class are binaries. Their orbits, however, are somewhat larger than those of the Algol variables, and are tilted towards us so that neither star can be seen to pass in front of the other. For the gradual and continual change of light cannot possibly be caused by an eclipse. Yet it seems clear that it is in some way connected with the revolution of two stars about one another
Various suggestions have been made, such as that the revolving star is unequally bright over its surface, and shows us now its brighter and now its duller face; that the two pull one another out of shape when they approach most nearly; that they are permanently elliptical, and turn to us first the broad and then the narrow face. Any or all of these may play some part in the variations of the light. But the most hopeful theory takes into account a very strange fact lately established, viz. that the variable is at its brightest not when approaching its fellow but when coming directly toward us, and at its faintest when receding directly from us.
This theory is that a dark and bright star are involved in a kind of thin nebulous cloud, and that the bright revolving star has an enveloping atmosphere. As it moves through the cloud this atmosphere is continually brushed back from its advancing face, and therefore we shall see it when coming straight towards us through a less thickness of atmosphere, and it will look brighter than when it is retreating from us.
There are grave difficulties in accepting this view, but it receives some support from the case of β Scorpii, in which, as we saw, a double star is suspected, for quite a different reason, of being surrounded by a thin cloud. And the atmosphere supposed to be surrounding the bright star may resemble the “smoky veil” which we know envelops our own sun, and causes a considerable absorption of light, for these variables are solar stars. The resistance of the cloud to the motion of the revolving star ought in time to shorten its
period, and some variables have been found to be shortening their periods.
Short-period variables are found chiefly in the Milky Way
IRREGULAR AND DOUBTFUL VARIABLES
Besides these well-marked classes of long-period, short-period, and Algol variables, there are some stars which seem to vary spasmodically, remaining sometimes for months or even for years without any change; and there are others whose variability is suspected but has never been confirmed. Useful work might be done by amateurs in trying to decide the status of these doubtful stars.
It must be borne in mind that red stars are notoriously difficult objects. Two observers comparing one at the same time with the same star will often come to opposite conclusions, showing how difficult it is to compare stars which differ much in colour. Whenever possible, red comparison stars should be selected to avoid this uncertainty.
The second star on the list below has a very peculiar type of variation, unlike any other except a northern star, R Coronae, and a third recently discovered. The spectra of RY Sagittarii and R Coronae are also peculiar and resemble one another.
The following are bright southern variables suspected to vary, or known to vary without recognised laws: S I
Name. Maximum Magnitude. Minimum Magnitude. Remarks. RY
Sagittarii 6.5 Fainter than 11.5 Usually steady, but subject to a sudden drop at irregular intervals. Worth watching. RT
Capricorni 6.5 About 8 Period probably irregular. Very few observations published. S Phoenicis
Observers differ. Period irregular.
Period perhaps 366 days
Name. Maximum Magnitude. Minimum Magnitude. Remarks.
U Hydrae
θ Apodis
Irregular. Red “carbon star.”
Period probably irregular. R Apodis
Suspected. T Indi
No regular period found
XII
STAR-CLUSTERS
Endlessly varied is the grouping of the stars. We find solitary stars, twin stars, large stars with small companions, bright stars with faint companions, stars alike in colour and type, stars in strongly contrasted colours, one young, the other aged, stars with invisible companions, couples close enough to touch one another, and couples so distant that the satellite takes more than a century to revolve round its primary. One or even both components of a bright pair may be themselves divisible into a closer pair, sometimes into a whole group of stars.
More beautiful and wonderful still are the clusters of stars of various tints and magnitudes, where scores, even hundreds, are gathered together in what to the eye is a tiny patch, though it may in fact take light many years to cross from one side of it to the other.
The finest example in the heavens of this kind of cluster is Kappa Crucis, near β in the Southern Cross.[8] It is just visible to the naked eye as a small star, and in a binocular the main star is seen to be surrounded by a number of others; in a telescope it is a glorious sight. Orange and red stars are easily distinguished in the brilliant throng, even if we have not Herschel’s eye for colour and fail to discriminate the “greenish-white, green, red, blue-green, and ruddy” which made up what he likened to “a superb piece of fancy jewellery.” He charted over a hundred stars of all magnitudes from 7 to 17. Herschel’s observations at the Cape were made between 1834 and 1838. When Mr. Russell charted the stars of Kappa Crucis at the Sydney Observatory in 1872, he found 25 that had not been recorded by Herschel, although the great reflector was much larger than the Sydney instrument; many of Herschel’s stars had drifted, and five could not be found at all. If changes so striking as this take
place in less than forty years, “it is evident,” as Russell observed, “that more attention should be bestowed on clusters.”
Quite a dozen star-clusters of this kind are visible to the naked eye in the southern hemisphere, the most striking being in Scorpio, where it shines as a conspicuous silvery spot just beyond the Scorpion’s tail, midway between κ Scorpii and γ Sagittarii. It is named M 7, which means the seventh in Messier’s list of clusters and nebulae. In a binocular it is seen to be a group of very many stars, some close together, others scattered. Lacaille, with his little half-inch telescope, counted from 15 to 20 stars, and Herschel, with his large reflector, estimated the number at 60. At Cordoba Observatory no less than 139 were catalogued.
M 6, a little north and west of M 7, is also visible to the naked eye as a nebulous patch, and is a fine cluster. About 50 stars between magnitudes eight and twelve have been photographed, and there are doubtless many more of lesser brightness.
Look also just above the naked-eye double ζ in Scorpio, and see what appears to be a hazy star. A binocular separates this into a number of small stars, and 150 have been photographed, of magnitudes seven to twelve. It is known as h 3652 or N.G.C. 6231, the former being the number in Sir John Herschel’s catalogue, the latter in Dreyer’s New General Catalogue of star-clusters and nebulae.
A little south of Sirius is a patch of nebulous light which shows as stars in a binocular. This was registered by Messier in 1764 as a “mass of small stars,” and is known as M 41. Webb saw the brighter stars arranged in curves and a ruddy star near the centre. One hundred and forty-four stars were registered by Gould, of which only five are as bright as eighth magnitude.
In the neighbourhood of the Cross there are quite a number of large bright clusters, for they must be large and bright above the average to be seen by the naked eye. A line passing through the shorter arm of the False Cross—i.e. from δ Velorum to ι Carinae, the naked-eye double—and continued for an equal distance beyond, leads to a white oval patch which is plainly visible to the naked eye,
and in the binocular appears like a few stars sparkling on a nebulous background. With higher powers the background also is resolved into stars, of which there are some two hundred of the fifteenth magnitude and brighter up to the eighth. This is N.G.C. 3114.
In the same direction is θ Carinae, a bright Orion-type star with numerous small stars crowding close to it. This is a very lovely group in a good binocular. It contains about twenty stars of magnitudes between three and eight, and with high powers appears as a brilliant, loosely scattered cluster covering a portion of sky equal in breadth to twice the sun’s apparent diameter.
Very similar is a cluster close to the bright and richly coloured star X Carinae. It looks like an elliptical nebula in a binocular, with a few stars scattered over it. Two hundred have been photographed.
Near ε Carinae, the beautiful ruddy star at the foot of the False Cross, is yet another most beautiful cluster, which contains about fifty stars of the ninth magnitude and brighter. It is visible to the naked eye, but when a telescope is turned upon it the brilliancy is startling. Radiant stars are scattered all over the field.
Just east of π Puppis, the top of the poop of Argo, is a fourthmagnitude star C of a bright orange colour, and round it is a cluster which Gould describes as “extremely impressive to the naked eye.” Ninety-two stars show on his photograph.
Close to δ Velorum (in the False Cross) is the star ο Velorum. Even to the naked eye the bright star (3½ mag.) is seen to be surrounded by a cluster of faint stars, and in a binocular it is a splendid sight. The number of stars is small, but they are bright, ten being above the ninth magnitude.
Lastly we may mention a remarkably fine cluster which is visible in a binocular though not to the naked eye, in the Centaur, among a stream of small stars between the Cross and η Argūs. Dunlop called it “a pretty large cluster of stars of mixt magnitudes”; Brisbane, “a prodigious number of small stars very close together.”[9] There are at least a hundred above the sixteenth magnitude.
It should be noticed that nearly all these clusters are in the Milky Way, and the rest are very near it, for this is characteristic of starclusters like these, viz. irregular groups containing mixed magnitudes of stars. In a list of all bright objects of this kind, only two are found as far as 30° away from the middle line of the Galaxy, while 89 are within 30° north or south of it. There are besides 38 in the Clouds of Magellan, which resemble the Milky Way in constitution. Many clusters are simply unusually dense portions of the Milky Way, and we may almost say that this type forms part of it and of the Magellan Clouds.
XIII
GLOBULAR STAR-CLUSTERS
If Kappa Crucis is the finest irregular star-cluster in the sky, Omega Centauri is undoubtedly the largest and most splendid of all the globular star-clusters, for its diameter is more than twice the diameter of the famous northern cluster in Hercules. It is easily found, being nearly in line with δ and γ Centauri (the two conspicuous stars just north of the Cross) and a little further from γ than γ is from δ. The cluster looks to the naked eye just like a tailless comet, and was mistaken for one by the author when first seen. In a binocular it is quite round, the soft milky light growing gradually brighter towards the centre, but without the slightest suggestion of irregularity, and no appearance of stars. It must have been seen by the early navigators who named the southern constellations, but it was first discovered as a star-cluster by Halley in the island of St. Helena. Most amazing is its appearance in a telescope, for the milky disc breaks up into thousands of tiny points of light, densely crowded, all alike, innumerable.
“This most glorious object,” as Herschel calls it, “the noble globular cluster ω Centauri, beyond all comparison the richest and largest object of the kind in the heavens,” is evidently quite distinct from κ Crucis and clusters like those described in the last chapter. In form it is circular, and the condensation towards the centre suggests that it is spherical. There are some scattered members of the group lying outside the bright crowded sphere. The stars are also immensely more numerous and more closely packed than in the irregular clusters, their total number being estimated at 10,000, and 6000 have been actually counted on photographs, and all these in a space which looks little larger than that occupied by the sun in the sky. Another striking difference is that, instead of bright and faint stars mingled together, here they are all nearly alike and very
minute. Curiously enough, it is found that they belong to two magnitudes, and two only, the thirteenth and fifteenth, and this seems to be a feature of all globular clusters, as well as the form and the dense crowding of the stars. Herschel at first thought the stars in ω Centauri “singularly equal, and distributed with the most exact equality, the condensation being that of a sphere equally filled.” But he immediately adds: “Looking attentively, I retract what is said about the equal scattering and equal sizes of the stars. There are two sizes ... without greater or less, and the larger stars form rings like lacework on it.” In his later notes he is again doubtful, for he thinks that the effect may be optical, and the larger stars only knots of faint stars; but photography has settled the question in our day.
Yet another point of difference between globular and irregular clusters is that the latter often have wisps of nebulosity clinging about them, but globular clusters are entirely free from it.
