Language Talent and Brain Activity / / ed. by Grzegorz Dogil, Susanne Maria Reiterer.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DGBA Backlist Complete English Language 2000-2014 PART1
• MitwirkendeR: Ackermann, Hermann,; Anufryk, Volha,; Baumotte, Henrike,; Brendel, Bettina,; Dogil, Grzegorz,; Grodd, Wolfgang,; Hu, Xiaochen,; Jilka, Matthias,; Kumar, Vinod,; Lewandowski, Natalie,; Nardo, Davide,; Reiterer, Susanne Maria,; Rota, Giuseppina,; Wildgruber, Dirk,
• HerausgeberIn: Dogil, Grzegorz,; Reiterer, Susanne Maria,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter Mouton, , [2009]; ©2009
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Language: English
• Series: Trends in Applied Linguistics [TAL] , 1
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (366 p.)

This comprehensive project has the objective of describing and assessing pronunciation talent with special focus on its psychological and neural correlates. The first part of this undertaking describes the extensive tests necessary to measure phonetic talent in its various dimensions, such as production and perception, the segmental and suprasegmental levels of speech, and different utterance forms such as spontaneous speech, reading and imitation. Subjects are examined in their native language (German), a familiar second language (English) and, to a lesser degree, an unfamiliar language (Hindi). The project also investigates psychological and behavioral influences such as empathy or motivation on pronunciation performance, as well as correlations with general linguistic aptitude. The described measures and correlations allow a reliable classification of proficiency and talent level to be used in the selection of subjects for the neuroimaging studies in the second part of the project. These use functional magnetic resonance imaging in order to observe differences in brain activity between talented and untalented individuals during the performance of phonetic tasks (perception of phonetic differences, imitation, reading).

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Table of contents -- Short portraits of the authors -- Talent and proficiency in language -- Assessment of phonetic ability -- Cognitive aspects of pronunciation talent -- Personality and pronunciation talent in second language acquisition -- Functional imaging of language competentbrain areas -- Brain and language talent: a synopsis -- Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS): An incidental “speech talent” following acquired brain damage? -- Musicality and phonetic language aptitude -- Sociolinguistic factors in language proficiency: phonetic convergence as a signature of pronunciation talent. -- Segmental factors in language proficiency: Coarticulatory resistance as a signature of pronunciation talent -- Prosodic factors in language proficiency: intonational variation as a signature of pronunciation talent -- Direct brain feedback and language learning from the gifted -- Beyond talent: a short language biography of Prof. Max Mangold -- Backmatter