Abstract: The authors review current brain imaging (fMRI and PET) studies of semantic representations in bilinguals and point out that the three issues have taken central ground in these studies: (1) whether semantic representations of different languages have identical neural mechanisms? (2) What effects do the proficiency in languages and the age of second language acquisition have on semantic representation in the brain? (3) Which brain areas are responsible for the switching and translation between languages? And whether these areas are devoted exclusively to language switching and/or translation?

Key words: bilingual, semantic representation, brain imaging

摘要： 简介了认知心理学和认知神经科学有关双语语义表征的理论观点及其研究方法，重点总结了近几年来双语语义表征的脑功能成像研究结果，指出当前双语脑功能研究的主要问题是：1) 不同语言的语义表征是否具有完全一致的神经基础；2) 语言熟练程度和语言获得年龄对语义表征及其神经基础有什么影响；3) 两种语言的转换和翻译由哪些脑区负责，是否具有特异性

关键词: 双语, 语义表征, 脑功能成像