Differential neural representations of syntactic and semantic information across languages in Chinese-English bilinguals

Abstract

Bilingual individuals manage multiple languages that align in conceptual meaning but differ in forms and structures. While prior research has established foundational insights into the neural mechanisms in bilingual processing, the extent to which the first (L1) and second language (L2) systems overlap or diverge across different linguistic components remains unclear. This study probed the neural underpinnings of syntactic and semantic processing for L1 and L2 in Chinese-English bilinguals (N = 44) who performed sentence comprehension tasks and an N-back working memory task during functional MRI scanning. We observed that the increased activation for L2 processing was within the verbal working memory network, suggesting a greater cognitive demand for processing L2. Crucially, we looked for brain regions showing adaptation to the repetition of semantic information and syntactic structure, and found more robust adaptation effects in L1 in the middle and superior temporal cortical areas. The differential adaptation effects between L1 and L2 were more pronounced for the semantic condition. Multivariate pattern analysis further revealed distinct neural sensitivities to syntactic and semantic representations between L1 and L2 across frontotemporal language regions. Our findings suggest that while L1 and L2 engage similar neural systems, finer representation analyses uncover distinct neural patterns for both semantic and syntactic aspects in the two languages. This study advances our understanding of neural representations involved in different language components in bilingual individuals.