ABSTRACT
A penetrating, insistent phone ringing, from a caller who would never give up, in fact, what one might expect from a senior, successful journalist; but I am getting ahead of myself. Barbara was a graduate student from another university, but then I did seem to attract the attention of certain such external individuals, determined students who wanted to spread the net for knowledge and possible guidance widely, beyond the immediate confines of their own institution. She was older than most, shy, diffident even, but definitely very determined, and possessed of some fluency in several languages, which appealed to my own long-standing and extramural philological and linguistic pursuits. She wanted me to act as an associate supervisor for her research into brain areas that might mediate second and third languages in polyglots – as a function of the number, proficiency, age-of-acquisition, whether spoken, heard or read, etc. – using electrophysiology. In particular, she planned to use the various wave forms present in the EEG during a language-related task, and associated evoked potentials. We had gone over her findings in my room, and lunch was calling; I had locked my office door and we were waiting outside for the lift that never came. Then I heard my office phone ringing.
