The Connectivity of Musical Aptitude and Foreign Language Learning Skills: Neural and Behavioural Evidence

Given the structural and acoustical similarities between speech and music, and possible overlapping cerebral structures in speech and music processing, a possible relationship between musical aptitude and linguistic abilities, especially in terms of second language pronunciation skills, was investigated. Moreover, the laterality effect of the mother tongue was examined with both adults and children by means of dichotic listening scores. Finally, two event-related potential studies sought to reveal whether children with advanced second language pronunciation skills and higher general musical aptitude differed from children with less-advanced pronunciation skills and less musical aptitude in accuracy when preattentively processing mistuned triads and music / speech sound durations. The results showed a significant relationship between musical aptitude, English language pronunciation skills, chord discrimination ability, and sound-change-evoked brain activation in response to musical stimuli (durational differences and triad contrasts). Regular music practice may also have a modulatory effect on the brain’s linguistic organization and cause altered hemispheric functioning in those who have regularly practised music for years. Based on the present results, it is proposed that language skills, both in production and discrimination, are interconnected with perceptual musical skills.

Neural correlates of language learning in adults

The human language-learning ability persists throughout life, indicating considerable flexibility at the cognitive and neural level. This ability spans from expanding the vocabulary in the mother tongue to acquisition of a new language with its lexicon and grammar. The present thesis consists of five studies that tap both of these aspects of adult language learning by using magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during language processing and language learning tasks. The thesis shows that learning novel phonological word forms, either in the native tongue or when exposed to a foreign phonology, activates the brain in similar ways. The results also show that novel native words readily become integrated in the mental lexicon. Several studies in the thesis highlight the left temporal cortex as an important brain region in learning and accessing phonological forms. Incidental learning of foreign phonological word forms was reflected in functionally distinct temporal lobe areas that, respectively, reflected short-term memory processes and more stable learning that persisted to the next day. In a study where explicitly trained items were tracked for ten months, it was found that enhanced naming-related temporal and frontal activation one week after learning was predictive of good long-term memory. The results suggest that memory maintenance is an active process that depends on mechanisms of reconsolidation, and that these process vary considerably between individuals. The thesis put special emphasis on studying language learning in the context of language production. The neural foundation of language production has been studied considerably less than that of perceptive language, especially on the sentence level. A well-known paradigm in language production studies is picture naming, also used as a clinical tool in neuropsychology. This thesis shows that accessing the meaning and phonological form of a depicted object are subserved by different neural implementations. Moreover, a comparison between action and object naming from identical images indicated that the grammatical class of the retrieved word (verb, noun) is less important than the visual content of the image. In the present thesis, the picture naming was further modified into a novel paradigm in order to probe sentence-level speech production in a newly learned miniature language. Neural activity related to grammatical processing did not differ between the novel language and the mother tongue, but stronger neural activation for the novel language was observed during the planning of the upcoming output, likely related to more demanding lexical retrieval and short-term memory. In sum, the thesis aimed at examining language learning by combining different linguistic domains, such as phonology, semantics, and grammar, in a dynamic description of language processing in the human brain.

Translation – The fifth language skill? A comparison of the role of translation in Finnish lukio and the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme

This study attempts to answer the question “Should translation be considered a fifth language skill?” by examining and comparing the use of translation as a language learning and assessment method in the national Finnish lukio curriculum and the curriculum of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP). Furthermore, the students’ ability to translate and their opinions on the usefulness of translation in language learning will be examined. The students’ opinions were gathered through a questionnaire that was given to 156 students studying in either lukio or the IBDP in Turku and Rovaniemi. I present and compare the role of translation in selected language teaching and learning methods and approaches, and discuss the effectiveness of translation as a language learning method and an assessment method. The theoretical discussion provides the basis for examining the role of translation as a language learning method and an assessment method in the curricula and final examinations of both education programs. The analysis of the two curricula indicated that there is a significant difference in the use of translation, as translation is used as a language learning method and as an assessment method in lukio, but is not used in either form in the IB. The data obtained through the questionnaire indicated that there is a difference in the level of language competence between the lukio and IB students and suggested that the curriculum in which the student studies has some effect on his/her cognitive use of translation, ability to translate and opinions concerning the usefulness of translation in language learning. The results indicated that both groups of students used translation, along with their mother tongue, as a cognitive language learning method, and, contrary to the expectations set by the analysis of the two curricula, the IB students performed better in the translation exercises than lukio students. Both groups of students agreed that translation is a useful language learning method, and indicated that the most common dictionaries they use are bilingual Internet dictionaries. The results suggest that translation is a specific skill that requires teaching and practice, and that perhaps the translation exercises used in lukio should be developed from translating individual words and phrases to translating cultural elements. In addition, the results suggest that perhaps the IB curriculum should include the use of translation exercises (e.g., communicative translation exercises) in order to help students learn to mediate between languages and cultures rather than learn languages in isolation from each other.

Effect of soil-spraying time on root-colonization ability of antagonistic Streptomyces griseoviridis

Selostus: Kasvualustan käsittelyajan vaikutus Streptomyces griseoviridis -antagonistin juurten asutuskykyyn