The Role of the Right Hemisphere in Second Language Acquisition

We turn now to a slightly different but related topic, one that has also stimulated a great deal of interest recently: the role of the right hemisphere in second language acquisition. The position we outlined for first language acquisition is consistent with the idea that the right hemisphere may play some role in early stages, and interestingly enough, it has been suggested that the right brain is somehow involved in normal second language acquisition in much the same way. Again, we briefly list some recent research results in this area, and attempt to supply an explanation.

1. Brain damage. In a recent survey of aphasia in "polyglot" subjects, Galloway (forthcoming) found a slightly higher incidence of aphasia due to right-sided lesions than in a presumable monolingual population (Table 2), consistent with the idea that the right hemisphere might be playing some role in second language acquisition or performance.

        Table 2. Frequency of aphasia in polyglots and monolinguals
__________________________________________________________________________

                     Right-handers                  Left-handers
                polyglots     monolinguals*    polyglots     monolinguals*
__________________________________________________________________________

Right lesions     4 (14%)          2%            5 (71%)         32%
Left lesions     25 (86%)         98%            2 (29%)         68%
__________________________________________________________________________
    * Estimated from aphasia literature (Galloway, forthcoming).

2. Dichotic listening and tachistoscopic exposure. Some dichotic listening studies and some tachistoscopic exposure studies (a visual analogue of dichotic listening: response superiority for items flashed to the right visual field is interpreted as reflecting left hemisphere processing) show little or no difference between first and second languages, typically showing left hemisphere processing for both (Hamers and Lambert, 1977; Barton, Goodglass, and Shai, 1965; Kershner and Jeng, 1972; Carroll, 1978). Other studies, however, do show the second language to be less left hemisphere lateralized or show right hemisphere processing. Obler, Albert, and Gordon (1975), in a study of Hebrew-English bilinguals, found a right-ear advantage for both Hebrew and English words, but observed a greater right-ear

78