Abstract #1113

Choe B, Jeun S, Kim B, Kim J

The purpose of the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) investigation was to examine the modulation of neural activity with respect to language translation. It is a complex task that entails an interaction between a second language (L2) and the native language(L1). To study the underlying mechanisms, we used fMRI to show bilinguals brain activity in phonological processing of reading English words (L2) shaped Korean words (L1). In our fMRI study, nine Korean-English bilingual subjects performed the experiment while they covertly read four type words such as Korean words, Korean words of foreign origin, English words shaped Korean words, English words. fMRI results reveal that the right occipital-temporal and the left inferior frontal areas have a greater response to the presentation of English words shaped Korean words than for other type words. These results may indicate a change in brain circuitry underlying relational processes of language translation, with transition from a similarity-b