Neuroscience, linguistics and me

Tossed was the past
Embraced is the future
Don’t need to look for me
For I’ve already reached the far end
Of my childhood dream
And started paving a new boulevard
Under the sun and the moon and a sea of stars…

Combining neuroscience and linguistics to find out a better way for Asian students to learn English more effectively is my academic interest. If brain can be readily manipulated to acquire linguistic skills, then one should be able to find out specific ways to trigger neurons to acquire a second language as does the first language.

Why does it seem more difficult for Asian students to learn English well compared with other Europeans? If UG theory is sustained, people should have pre-wired capability to learn other languages. What are factors strongly influencing an adult’s second language acquisition? Is it possible to have adults acquire other languages like they do for their first ones? How can one apply fMRI scanning to monitor brain activities in order to sort out a pattern or decode the mystery of linguistic acquisition embedded in the brain? Supposedly one utilizes the left hemisphere of brain to learn a language, but recent studies suggest any brain activity very likely be related with more than one specific area in the brain.

Can we possibly apply the nanotechnology to cure any brain damage without drilling a hole in one’s skull? If it’s possible, can we utilize the same method to trigger neurons to be active again so that one can acquire a second language as efficiently as the first one?

How can we use nanotechnology to create a device that is able to go through skin and enter blood vessel so as to locate infected or mutated cells such as cancer or tumor? Is it possible to come up with such a medical tool? If so, then we won’t need to drill a hole on a patient’s skull to treat brain damage or related cerebral diseases. My speculation is whether it is likely to devise delicate equipment; the challenge leads to the fundamental issue-the complex brain structure. Is the device able to penetrate the protective brain wall-capillary without damaging the endothelial cells? Otherwise, it will also leave an opening path to let other infectious viruses go into the brain.

Such a device would be ingenuous to applications of brain damage treatment or stimulation of brain cells. My proposal is to apply this device combined with electrodes stimulating brain cells to provoke language acquisition in a more effective way. Perhaps we can find out why Asia students cannot learn English as well as their European counterparts? How much does the environmental impact an individual’s language acquisition? What about bilingual and multi-lingual individuals? Can we sort out a generalization using fMRI or PET? The comparison between Asians and Europeans’ scanning would be interesting to observe. Other than that, I would like to study why female in general seems to be adept in articulation and pronunciation compared to male in Asia? There are a lot of research done in the past, indicating women are better in verbal expression. However, is it possible to use high- tech devices to manipulate our brain and change the phenomenon? What makes the difference between female and male’s language acquisition? My ultimate goal is to probe into the second language acquisition and find out whether we are capable to use modern technology to help adult learners acquire other languages as well as their first one.

I also want to examine brain activities, via PET or fMRI, on those who can do simultaneous English-Chinese translation. I accidentally found out I can think in Chinese but write out words in English at the same time. What would be my brain activities? Does that literally mean my brain can carry out both mechanisms at the same time or is there indeed some subtle variation in the processing time? Could it mean something to help us find a better method in language acquisition? What about using our will and mind to change the adult’s brain neurons as says in Jeffery M. Schwartz’s book “The Mind and the Brain”? If we can find a way to activate or make our brain act like the other language speakers’ first language acquisition pattern or style, shouldn’t one learn his or her second or even third language more successfully? Perhaps we can unveil the mystery of those we call talented language learners’ linguistic properties.

I personally believe one can learn a second language just like his native tongue. Yet, how much should one devote himself in that? When referring to internalizing a second language, what would be the average environmental immersion effort? And how much will a person’s will power and mind affect the language acquisition? Can we use a more scientific methodology to change an adult’s language learning, which is believed being fixed for the mother tongue? Is it possible one can break the mold when studying a foreign language? My focus will be on Mandarin vs. English acquisition. It would be fascinating seeing English native speakers use the same way native Mandarin speakers do in acquiring their first language.