Neural mechanisms of attitudinal prosody in a second language: The impact of informal exposure

Abstract Understanding how attitudinal prosody is processed in a second language (L2) remains an open question, particularly regarding its neural mechanisms and the role of real-world experiences. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined how native Japanese learners processed attitudinal versus linguistic prosody in their L1 (Japanese) and L2 (English) during a forced-choice judgment task. Across languages, attitudinal and linguistic prosody engaged partially dissociable networks: attitudinal prosody recruited socio-cognitive regions involved in inferring speakers’ intentions, whereas linguistic prosody engaged phonological-motor regions. Critically, L2 attitudinal prosody elicited distinct frontal modulation, with the left inferior frontal gyrus and middle frontal gyrus showing stronger prosody-type differentiation in English than in Japanese – indicating greater reliance on controlled interpretive and executive processes during non-native attitudinal prosody comprehension. Individual-difference analyses revealed that informal L2 exposure predicted enhanced activation in the thalamus and left hippocampus, as well as better attitudinal prosody identification. These converging neural and behavioral patterns suggest that socially grounded experience plays an important role in developing sensitivity to attitudinal prosody in an L2. Together, these findings provide novel neural evidence for how L2 learners interpret attitudinal prosody and show that L2 exposure is associated with differences in pragmatic prosody at cognitive and neural levels.