On the Relationship between Brain Laterality and Language Proficiency in L2: A Replication Study

Abstract

The present paper attempted to investigate whether there is any significant relationship between participants' brain laterality and L2 proficiency level. To carry out the experiment, 30 participants administered in the present study. Fifteen of them did not have any English language learning experience and were at the start of language learning, while the rest had attended L2 learning classes for about 2 years in a popular English language center, located in Bandar-e Anzali, Iran. Finally, the researchers concluded that the activity of the right hemisphere went up by the increase in language proficiency among bilinguals. Thereupon, the result of the paper was at variance with Albert and Obler's (1978) early work on hemispheric differentiation, which indicated that bilinguals were less hemispheric dominant than monolinguals.