No Sex Differences in Phi-Features Processing in Bilinguals: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) Study

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 PhD of Linguistics, Linguistics Department, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

2 Professor, Department of Psychology, Humboldt University Zu Berlin, Berlin Germany

10.22084/rjhll.2023.27929.2273

Abstract

The main focus of the present study is to investigating the sex differences in L1 and L2 Number and Person Phi-features processing of bilinguals. To achieve this goal, the performance of thirty balanced Turkish-Persian bilinguals (15 women) who had learned Persian at school entry, was evaluated by event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Both groups displayed significant activation of the Pars opercularis only for the Number feature, whereas the posterior Superior Temporal Gyrus was activated for both Number and Person features. Importantly, no difference was observed in the brain activation patterns in men and women in processing Number or Person Phi-features. In general, our results suggest that Number and Person Phi-features processing may not be influenced by sex differences, age of acquisition or the interaction of these factors, arguing for an indistinguishable syntactic competence of both genders in L1 and L2 for balanced bilinguals.

Keywords

References

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