Chapter12

Language and the Brain:

 Neurolinguistics:
 The study of the relationship
between language and the brain.
12: Language and the brain:
 Ability to use language
 The left hemisphere (language center) and the right hemisphere

 Language Spatial abilities

 Math Face recognition
 Logic Visual imagery
Music
Left hemisphere:

Arcuate fasciculus
Motor cortex

Anterior speech cortex

Posterior speech cortex
Broca’s area
Wernicke’s area
Broca’s area (anterior speech cortex):

 A part of the brain in the left hemisphere involved in speech

production.

Anterior speech cortex

Broca’s area
Wernicke’s area (posterior speech cortex):

 A part of the brain in the left hemisphere involved in language

comprehension.

Posterior speech cortex

Wernicke’s area
The motor cortex (:

 Close to Broca’s area is the part of the motor cortex that controls the
articulatory muscles of the face, jaw, tongue and larynx.
 The physical articulation of speech

Motor cortex
The arcuate fasciculus:

 It is a bundle of nerve fibers

 Connection between Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas

Arcuate fasciculus
The localization view:
 The word is heard and comprehended by Wernicke’s area ,
the signal is transferred via the arcuate fasciculus to Broca’s
area where preparations are made to produce it. A signal is
then sent to the motor cortex to physically articulate the
word. But this is an oversimplified version of what may
actually takes place. We have neglected to mention the
intricate interconnections via the central nervous system, the
complex role of the brain’s supply, and the extremely
interdependent nature of most brain functions. The
localization view is one way to say that our linguistic
abilities have identifiable locations in the brain.
Malfunctions: disorders in brain function

Tip of the tongue - malapropism

Mild Slip of the tongue (spoonerism)
 Malfunctions: Slip of the ear

Broca’s aphasia (motor aphasia)

Severe Wernicke’s aphasia (sensory
aphasia)
Conduction aphasia
Tongue Tips:

 Tip of the tongue: you know the word, but it won’t come
to the surface.
 Malapropism (named after Mrs. Malaprop): Misuse of a
word for another one.
 E.g. distinguisher – extinguisher

meditation - medication
Tongue slips (changing the sounds in pronunciation):

 Spoonerism (after William Spooner): the interchange of

two initial sounds.
 E.g. You have hissed all my mystery lectures.
 Chish and fips
Slips of the Brain
 Perseveration error: carry over a sound from one
word to the next.
 Black bloxes
 Anticipation error: when a sound is brought
forward
 Noman numeral (Roman)
 A tup of tea (cup)
 Highly played player (paid)
 Exchange: the interchange of a: initial sounds
change places. Beel fetter
 b)word-final sounds (less common).
 Slips of the ear
 Slips of the ear: A type of misunderstanding.
 e.g.
 Great ape (gray tape)
 Gladly the cross-eyed bear (Gladly the cross I’d
bear)
 Aphasia:
 An impairment of language function due to
localized brain damage that leads to difficulty in
understanding and/or producing linguistic forms.
Broca’s aphasia (motor aphasia):

 It is serious language disorder characterized by

a substantially reduced amount of speech,
distorted articulation and slow often effortful
speech. In Broca’s aphasia comprehension is
typically much beter than production.
 Agrammatic: the grammatical markers are

missing. They generally use lexical

morphemes but not functional morphemes.
Wernicke’s aphasia (sensory aphasia):

 The type of language disorder which results in

difficulties in auditory comprehension is
sometimes called “ sensory aphasia “ someone
suffering fom this disorder can actually
produce very fluent speech which is, however,
often difficult to make sense of it.
Conduction aphasia:

 It is identified with damage to the arcuate fasciculus.

This time people do not have articulation problems
but may have disrupted rhythm because of pauses
and hesitations. Comprehension of spoken words is
normally good. But repeating a word or phrase
( spoken by someone else ) will create major
difficulties. What is heard and understood can not be
transferred to the speech production area.
Dichotic listening test:

 Subjects / earphones / two different sounds simultaneously,

one through each ear
 Easier to identify the sound that come via the right ear. This
is known as right-ear advantage.
 Non-direct route takes longer
 The right hemisphere is responsible for processing non-
linguistic (non-verbal) signals, like music, coughs, traffic
noises, birds singing.

 The left hemisphere is dominant for language sounds.

 Left Brain – Right Brain
 The right hemisphere appears to have primary
responsibility for processing a lot of other incoming
signals of non linguistic nature. So the righthemisphere
handles non-verbal sounds and the left-hemisphere
handles language sounds.
The critical period/ the sensitive period:

 Lateralization/ lateral dominance (one-sidedness):

 The specialization of the left side of the brain for
language function and it begins in early childhood
 During childhood, there is a period when the human brain is
most ready to receive input and learn a particular language.
It is called the critical or sensitive period.
 Language acquisition is difficult after this period. Why?
 Because lateralization has already occurred by this time.
Genie:

 No language during the critical period

 Communicating after the puberty
 Using the right hemisphere of her brain for language
functions.
 A left ear advantage for verbal as well as non-verbal signals.
 Unit 13
13. First language acquisition
 There is some innate disposition in the human
infant to acquire language. This can be called
as the “ language-faculty” of the human with
each newborn child is endowed. It is a special
capacity for language.By itself, this faculty is
not enough.
 Certain requirements:

 Interaction
 Cultural transmission
 Physical ability
 Input:
 Language samples

 Caretaker Speech The simplified speech style

adopted by someone who spends a lot of time
interacting with a young child is called
caretaker speech. ( Motherese ) Frequent
questions, exaggerated intonation, simplified
words and structures and a lot of repetition
characterize caretaker’s speech.
The Acquisition Schedule
 Language acquisition schedule has the same basis
as the biologically determined development of
motor skills. This biologically schedule is tied to
the maturation of the infant’s brain and the
lateralization process. This biological program is
dependent on an interplay with many social factors
in the child’s environment. Acquisition requires
constant input from which the basis of the
regularities in the particular language can be
worked out.
 Stages of language acquisition:
 Cooing or gooing
 (1- 5; [i], [u], [k], [g]); difference between [i] - [a]; [ba]
- [ga]
 Babbling
 (6-8; ba-ba-ba and ga-ga-ga);
 (9-10; intonation pattern, variation in combinations,
ba-ba-da-da);
 (nasal sounds ma-ma-ma);
 (complex combinations ma-da-ga-ba)
 Stages of language acquisition:
 The one-word stage/ holophrastic stage
(12-18):
 Between 12-18 months, they produce single units
utterances. ( Milk, Cookie, Cat ) . It is holophrastic
because the child can use a single form functioning as a
phrase or sentence.
 Holophrase water
 Intended meaning I want some water
Stages of language acquisition:
 The two-word stage (18-20): two terms are used
together as an utterence.
 Baby chair
 This is baby’s chair (an expression of possession)
 Put baby in chair (a request)
 Baby is in the chair (a statement)
Telegraphic speech

 (24- 30 months) the child begins producing a large number of

utterances which could be classified as multiple-word
utterances. Word-form variations begin to appear. The child
has clearly developed some sentence-building capacity by this
stage and can order the forms correctly. By the age of two and
a half, the child’s vocabulary is expanding rapidly and the
child is initiating more talk. By three, the vocabulary has
grown to hundreds of words and pronunciation has become
closer to the form of the adult language.
 Strings of words in phrases or sentences

 This shoe all wet.

 Cat drink milk
The acquisition process:

 For the vast majority of children, no one provides any

instruction on how to speak the language, the child is
not being taught the language. Children actively
construct, from what’s said to them, possible ways of
using the language and test whether they work or not.
It’s impossible to say that the child is acquiring the
language through a process of consistently imitating
adult speech in parrot-fashion and through imitation.
Adults simply don’t produce many of the types of
expressions which turn up in children’s speech.
 Developing morphology:

 1.Using inflectional morphemes

 2.-ing cat sitting
 3.Plural marker -s cats, boys
 4.Possessive inflection -’s girl’s dog
 5.“to be” are, was
 6.Irregular past-tense forms went, came
 7.Regular past-tense forms walked, played
 8. the regular –s marker on third person singular present
tense verbs appears. –s occurs with full verbs first
( comes,looks ) and then with auxiliaries ( does, has )
 Overgeneralization

 Extending a grammatical rule for all

situations
 foots, mans
 goed, comed
 Developing syntax (forming questions):

 First stage (18-26):

 Wh- form (where, who) to the beginning of the

expression. E.g., Where kitty?

 A rise in intonation towards the end. E.g., Doggie?

 Second stage (22-30):

 More complex expressions, more Wh-forms.

e.g., Why you smiling? See my doggie?

 Third stage (24-40):

 The inversion of subject and verb. E.g., Can I have?

 Developing syntax (forming negatives):

 First stage (18-26):

 Putting No or Not at the beginning.

e.g., Not teddy bear, No sit there

 Second stage (22-30):

 don’t and can’t.

 No and not before verbs, e.g., He no bite you.

 Third stage (24-40):

 Didn’t and won’t

 Stage 1 disappears
 A very late acquisition: isn’t
 Developing semantics:

 During the holophrastic stage, many children use their limited

vocabulary to refer to a large number of unrelated objects ( bow-
wow to refer to a dog ). Sometimes children use bow-wow to refer
to cats and horses. This is called “ overextension “ which is done
on the basis of similarities of shape, sound and size. The semantic
development in child is use of words is usually a process of
overextension initially, followed by a gradual process of narrowing
down the application of each term as more words are learned. In
terms of hyponymy, the child will almost always use the middle
level term in a hyponymous set such as animal – dog –poodle. It
also seems that antonymous relations are acquired fairly late. By
the age of 5, the child has completed the greater part of basic
language acquisition process. According to some, the child is then
in a good position to start learning a second language.