Golestani: Language processing in the healthy, multilingual and expert brain

'The Multilingual Mind: Lecture series on multilingualism across disciplines'

18.01.2022
Narly Golestani (University of Geneva)
Language processing in the healthy, multilingual and expert brain

Abstract
There are large individual differences in speech and language processing skills at different levels of the linguistic hierarchy, and these are likely modulated by experience-dependent plasticity but also by possible differences in innate predisposition. I will provide an overview of a body of research in which we have explored brain functional and structural differences underlying speech and language processing, in the context of healthy individual differences but also extending to multilingualism, to language expertise (e.g. in phoneticians and simultaneous interpreters) and to dysfunction (e.g. in dyslexia and aphasia). In this context I will also describe our rapidly growing body of work on variation in auditory cortex anatomy and phonetic learning, dyslexia, aphasia and musicianship, and describe how we plan to explore the relative influences of nature vs nurture on these individual differences, across the lifespan.

Organised by Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Jagiellonian University, University of Konstanz, University Milano-Bicocca, University of Reading and the Marie Curie ITN project 'The Multilingual Mind' (765556).