Balanced bilinguals favor lexical processing in their opaque language and conversion system in their shallow language

•Bilingual brain adapts reading process to the orthographic depth of language.•Matched French and German words were presented to highly equi-proficient bilinguals.•Spatiotemporal electrical neuroimaging analyses were used.•Phonological networks reinforce word processing more strongly in shallow than...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Brain and language 2015-11, Vol.150, p.166-176
Main Authors: Buetler, Karin A., de León Rodríguez, Diego, Laganaro, Marina, Müri, René, Nyffeler, Thomas, Spierer, Lucas, Annoni, Jean-Marie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Bilingual
Brain - physiology
Brain Mapping
Dual-Route Model
EEG
ERP
Evoked Potentials - physiology
Female
France
Germany
Grapheme–phoneme conversion
Humans
Language
Linguistics
Multilingualism
Orthographic depth
Reading
Reading strategies
Topography
Words
Young Adult
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Summary:•Bilingual brain adapts reading process to the orthographic depth of language.•Matched French and German words were presented to highly equi-proficient bilinguals.•Spatiotemporal electrical neuroimaging analyses were used.•Phonological networks reinforce word processing more strongly in shallow than deep orthography. Referred to as orthographic depth, the degree of consistency of grapheme/phoneme correspondences varies across languages from high in shallow orthographies to low in deep orthographies. The present study investigates the impact of orthographic depth on reading route by analyzing evoked potentials to words in a deep (French) and shallow (German) language presented to highly proficient bilinguals. ERP analyses to German and French words revealed significant topographic modulations 240–280ms post-stimulus onset, indicative of distinct brain networks engaged in reading over this time window. Source estimations revealed that these effects stemmed from modulations of left insular, inferior frontal and dorsolateral regions (German>French) previously associated to phonological processing. Our results show that reading in a shallow language was associated to a stronger engagement of phonological pathways than reading in a deep language. Thus, the lexical pathways favored in word reading are reinforced by phonological networks more strongly in the shallow than deep orthography.
ISSN:0093-934X
1090-2155
DOI:10.1016/j.bandl.2015.10.001