The Neural Bases of Reading
Charles A. Perfetti, Jessica R. Nelson, Ying Liu, Julie A. Fiez, Li‐Hai Tan · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2010
This chapter explores the highly contrastive cases of English and Chinese to examine how the neural basis of reading accommodates variability in the structure of languages. The notion of accommodation, in fact, is central to the analysis. It argues that the reading network must accommodate variation in writing systems by organizing in a way that reflects the properties of each particular writing system. The prior state of the network—the organization of the network when there is a previously learned language—influences how the network adapts to those properties specific to a second language. In particular, to some extent, the prior network may assimilate the second language, using its first-language procedures to the extent possible.