General principles governing the amount of neuroanatomical overlap between languages in bilinguals

Abstract

The literature has identified many important factors affecting the extent to which languages in bilinguals rely on the same neural populations in the specific brain region. The factors include the age of acquisition of the second language (L2), proficiency level of the first language (L1) and L2, and the amount of language exposure, among others. What is lacking is a set of global principles that explain how the many factors relate to the degree to which languages overlap neuroanatomically in bilinguals. We are offering a set of such principles that together account for the numerous sources of data that have been examined individually but not collectively: (1) the principle of acquisition similarity between L1 and L2, (2) the principle of linguistic similarity between L1 and L2, and (3) the principle of cognitive control and effort. Referencing the broad characteristics of language organization in bilinguals, as presented by the principles, can provide a roadmap for future clinical and basic science research.

Keywords: Age; Bilingual; Brain surgery; Clinical language mapping; Cognitive control; Effort; Model; Multilingual; Principles; Proficiency; fMRI.