政大語言學/英語教學學術工作坊

講者：Professor Hyeonjeong Jeong / Graduate School of International Cultural Studies & Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Japan

題目：Language, Brain, and Learning: Toward an Integrative Neurocognitive Framework

摘要：This talk explores how cognitive neuroscientific methods, particularly functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), can be integrated with linguistic, psychological, and educational approaches through a series of empirical case studies. It highlights how linguistic, social, and emotional factors interact in the brain during language use and acquisition, demonstrating the potential of brain-based methods as a unifying framework across disciplines. From a linguistic perspective, recent work (Jeong et al., 2025) demonstrates the crucial role of the left inferior frontal gyrus (BA44) in integrating syntactic structure and information structure during sentence comprehension, highlighting the dynamic interaction between structural and discourse-level representations. From a psychological perspective, studies on second language learning (Jeong et al., 2021) show that memory formation and retrieval are modulated by social learning contexts, suggesting that language learning is deeply embedded in social meaning-making and affective experience. Extending this line of research, recent findings further reveal how social interaction shapes the neural representation of emotional words in late bilinguals (Liu et al., 2024). Importantly, perceptual social cues such as facial information also play a critical role: seeing the speaker’s face enhances second language shadowing performance, as demonstrated by converging neural and behavioral evidence (Jeong et al., 2026). From an educational and applied perspective, research on language production further reveals how temporal and structural aspects of speech are neurally instantiated. In particular, studies on silent pauses in first and second language speech (Révész et al., 2026) provide insight into the neurocognitive organization of spontaneous language production, capturing features of more naturalistic language use and contributing to efforts to enhance ecological validity in neuroimaging research. These findings collectively point to a view of language as a neurocognitive system that is not only structural and symbolic but also socially and emotionally grounded. Taken together, this body of work suggests that fMRI can serve as an integrative platform for investigating language as a dynamic system that connects cognition, social interaction, and emotion. The talk concludes by discussing how this interdisciplinary framework can inform future research in second language acquisition and language education.

References
Jeong, H. et al. (2025). The crucial role of the left inferior frontal gyrus (BA44) in synergizing syntactic structure and information structure during sentence comprehension. Brain and Language.
Liu, C., Jeong, H. et al. (2024). Effects of social interactions on the neural representation of emotional words in late bilinguals. Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience.
Jeong, H. et al. (2021). Neural mechanisms of language learning from social contexts. Brain and Language.
Jeong, H. et al. (2026). Seeing the speaker’s face enhances second language shadowing. Language Learning.
Révész, A., Jeong, H. et al. (2026). Neural correlates of silent pauses in L1 and L2 speech. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.

時間：115年5月5日星期二中午12點30分至下午2點

地點：國立政治大學季陶樓340313語言所視聽會議室

主辦：國立政治大學語言學研究所


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