ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the right hemisphere's role in language acquisition, with reference to relevant data from the fields of language acquisition and neuroscience. The first two sections of the chapter reviews evidence for right hemisphere participation in first- and second-language acquisition. Based on studies of the development of lateralization which have found that although children show left hemisphere dominance for language stimuli, they appear to be relatively less lateralized than adults. The stage hypothesis predicts that in right-handed individuals, right hemisphere involvement is greater for the language being acquired than for the first language. It also predicts that right hemisphere participation should be especially apparent in the early stages of second language acquisition. The stage hypothesis thus implies that laterality differences between the bilingual's two languages will decrease as second language proficiency increases.
