Language "locations" in the brain

[George Elgin, Suzette Haden Elgin]

September 25, 1997

In the July 10, 1997 issue of Nature, an article by Hirsch and Kim reported
functional MRI research purporting to demonstrate that in multilinguals who
acquire a second (or more) language in infancy or early childhood,  all
languages are represented in a single Broca's area location, while in
multilinguals acquiring second (or more) languages after puberty each
language has a separate Broca's area location. (No difference in Wernicke's
area, regardless of time of acquisition.) I'd be most grateful for comment
from Funknetters about this research; I've been getting questions about it,
and would like to offer reasonably informed answers. Thanks for your help.

Suzette Haden Elgin
ocls at ipa.net