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While the understanding of oral communication appears to be a natural ability acquired relatively early in life, reading written language is a skill that is developed only after a prolonged program of structured learning. Different language networks underlie these two means of communication, however there is evidence that the classical region associated with speech comprehension (Wernicke's area in the posterior temporal lobe) is involved in the understanding of both written and spoken sentences. We have carded out functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in 12 subjects who performed language comprehension tasks involving reading paragraphs of text and listening to dictation, in order to explore the functional activation associated with the comprehension of language delivered via these different sensory modalities. There was a region of common activation in the posterior auditory association cortex of the temporal lobe with a similar extent and comparable degree of activation for both reading and listening. As well, during reading there was bilateral occipital activation extending into the parieto-occipital sulcus. We conclude that the region of the posterior temporal lobe involved in understanding spoken language is also activated during reading, but that other cortical regions may also contribute to the comprehension of written language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]