Introduction

Abstract

The papers in this Special Issue focus on the use of neuroimaging techniques to answer questions about the neural representation, processing and control of two languages. Neuropsychological data from bilingual aphasics remain vital if we are to establish the neural basis of language (see Paradis, 1995) but lesion-deficit studies alone cannot tell us how neural activity relates to ongoing language processing. Modern neuroimaging methods provide a means to do so. There are two broad classes of such methods: electrophysiological methods allow us to answer questions about when a particular process occurs whereas haemodynamic methods allow us to answer the complementary question of where in the brain such a process is carried out. Before giving a thumb-nail sketch of the papers in this Special Issue, I briefly discuss each class of method.