Bilingualism and multilingualism are highly prevalent. Non-invasive brain imaging has been used to study the neural correlates of native and non-native speech and language production, mainly on the lexical and syntactic level. Here, we acquired continuous fast event-related FMRI during visually cued overt production of exclusively German and English vowels and syllables. We analyzed data from 13 university students, native speakers of German and sequential English bilinguals. The production of non-native English sounds was associated with increased activity of the left primary sensorimotor cortex, bilateral cerebellar hemispheres (lobule VI), left inferior frontal gyrus, and left anterior insula compared to native German sounds. The contrast German > English sounds was not statistically significant. Our results emphasize that the production of non-native speech requires additional neural resources already on a basic phonological level in sequential bilinguals.

中文翻译：

---

连续德英双语者母语和非母语语音产生的功能磁共振成像

双语制和多语制非常普遍。非侵入性脑成像已被用于研究母语和非母语语音和语言产生的神经相关性，主要是在词汇和句法层面。在这里，我们在视觉提示的完全德语和英语元音和音节的公开生产过程中获得了连续快速事件相关 FMRI。我们分析了来自 13 名大学生、德语母语者和连续英语双语者的数据。与本土德语发音相比，非本土英语发音与左侧初级感觉运动皮层、双侧小脑半球（小叶 VI）、左额下回和左前脑岛的活动增加有关。对比德语 > 英语发音没有统计学意义。