Japanese-English Biliingual Language Acquisition - An fNIRS study

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25284111
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Foreign language education
• Research Institution: Ritsumeikan University
• Principal Investigator: TAURA HIDEYUKI 立命館大学, 言語教育情報研究科, 教授 (40313738)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 平田 裕 立命館大学, 言語教育情報研究科, 教授 (00340753) ; 難波 和彦 京都産業大学, 外国語学部, 教授 (10550585) ; 山本 雅代 関西学院大学, 国際学部, 教授 (40230586) ; 津熊 良政 立命館大学, 言語教育情報研究科, 教授 (50188520) ; 井狩 幸男 大阪市立大学, 大学院文学研究科, 教授 (60193158) ; 田浦 アマンダ 摂南大学, 外国語学部, 准教授 (60388642)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: バイリンガル / 脳内ネットワーク / 脳賦活 / L1とL2 / 表象言語

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The research focused on data collected from Japanese-English bilinguals who grew up using both logographic (i.e. Japanese) and alphabetical languages, to examine whether they exhibit similar tendencies to participants who are alphabetic bilinguals (i.e. English-French). By examining both linguistic aspects and fNIRS brain-imaging activation, we most importantly found that Japanese-English bilinguals whose exposure to both languages started before birth as an embryo have their two language production centers lateralized in Broca's area while bilinguals whose exposure to their second language started at or after birth tend to utilize their right hemisphere more. This was despite there being no significant differences in behavioral data among the groups examined. The second most important finding relates to the fNIRS brain-imaging data, which is found to be susceptible to the language environment, rather than linguistic proficiency.

Free Research Field

心理言語学