Language and the brain

Layout
12.1 General brain structure and function
12.1.1 Why do we have body preferences?
12.1.2 The hemispheres of the brain
12.2 Hemispheric structure and function
12.2.1 Left and right hemispheres control opposite
sides of the body
12.2.2 Hemispheric dominance
12.2.3 Lateralized hemispheric functioning
 Language and the brain
12.1.1 Why do we have body preferences?
Imagine that you are at the beach and there is a little
beach ball at your feet. Someone calls out, ‘Kick it!’
 Suppose the ball is at your feet again and someone calls
out, ‘Pick it up and throw it to me!’ Imagine now throwing
that ball. Good! Now, one last thing.
You are sitting in the doctor’s office facing the door into
the doctor’s room. You hear some people talking in the
room but you can’t make out what they are saying. So you
strain to hear. You turn your head slightly towards the
door. Now, you can make out what is being said!
 Language and the brain
 Now, which foot did you use? Which hand did you
use? And, which side of your head did you turn?
 Most people would have used their right foot to kick,
their right hand to throw, and they would have turned
the right side of their head towards the sound.
A minority of people, mainly male, would have used
the opposite sides for these tasks.
Try now to imagine kicking the ball, throwing the ball,
and listening with the opposite side of your preference.
How does it feel? Not so satisfying, is it?
 Language and the brain
 Why do we have these preferences? We have them
from childhood and throughout our lives. Why?
 The answer lies in the brain, its structure and
function.
We will begin with a discussion of the brain and in
doing so we will explain why it is that we have the
preferences that we do.
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12.1.2 The hemispheres of the brain
The general structure of the brain is that of a whole which
is divided into vertical halves that seem to be mirror
images of one another.
It looks much like a walnut with the two parts joined
around the middle, except that there is little space
between the two halves in the real brain.
Each half of the brain is called a hemisphere.
There is a left hemisphere and a right hemisphere.
The hemispheres come out of the brain stem, which
connects to the spinal cord.
 Language and the brain
 The hemispheres maintain connection with one
another through a bundle of fibres called the corpus
callosum.
The brain, together with the spinal cord, is referred to
as the central nervous system of the human body.
 There is a covering on each hemisphere, called the
cortex, which is a furrowed outer layer of cell matter.
It is the cortex that is concerned with higher brain
functions in both humans and animals.
 Language and the brain
 Each cerebral hemisphere is divided into four parts or
lobes: from front to back there are the frontal, temporal,
parietal (located above the temporal), and the occipital.
 General functions such as cognition (to some degree)
occur in the frontal lobe, hearing occurs in the temporal
lobe, general somaesthetic sensing (feeling in the arms,
legs, face, etc.) in the parietal lobe, and vision in the
occipital lobe.
 Language and the brain
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 Language and the brain
 Language areas:
The areas that have been proposed for the processing of
speaking, listening, reading, writing, and singing are
mainly located at or around the Sylvian and Rolando
fissures.

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Language and the brain
 Language and the brain
 12.2 Hemispheric structure and function
12.2.1 Left and right hemispheres control
opposite sides of the body
 The left hemisphere controls the right side of the
body, including the right hand, the right arm, and the
right side of the face, while the right hemisphere
controls the left side of the body.
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 12.2.2 Hemispheric dominance
Typically, the left hemisphere dominates the right
hand and foot preference:
Most persons prefer their right hand and their right
foot.
This generally indicates that the left hemisphere
dominates the right hemisphere.
The result of such dominance is that such people
(left-hemisphere dominant) would tend to prefer the
right side of their bodies.
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 Left-handers
 About 10 % of the population worldwide are left-handed but, counter
to expectations, only about 30 per cent of left-handers have right
hemisphere dominance.
 The majority of left-handers are left hemisphere dominant but their
dominance tends to be much less marked than in natural right-
handed persons.
 The lack of strong dominance for lefthanders is believed to be a factor
contributing to speech disorders and to various reading and writing
dysfunctions, such as stuttering and dyslexia, which includes the
reversal or mirror-imaging of letters and words when reading or
writing.
 Language and the brain
Lamm and Epstein (1999), for example, report
that lefthanded native Hebrew speakers perform
less well than right-handers in the study of
English, particularly reading.
Such dysfunctions seem to be caused by the two
hemispheres vying with one another for
dominance.
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Sound preferences
Speech sounds are differentiated from other types of
sounds including music, animal sounds, and noises.
The two hemispheres specialize in processing these
two types of sounds (speech and non-speech).
For true right-handers, speech sounds are mainly
processed in the left hemisphere while music, noises,
and animals sounds are mainly processed in the right
hemisphere.
The opposite will be the case for some left-handers.
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12.2.3 Lateralized hemispheric functioning
Lateralization
Besides their general functioning, the hemispheres have
some very specialized structures and functions. Some
functions occur in one hemisphere while other functions
occur in the other hemisphere.
This separation of functions is called lateralization.
Incoming experiences are directed to the left or right
hemisphere depending on the nature of those
experiences, be they speech, faces, or sensations of touch.
 Language and the brain
Left-hemisphere specializations:
For most people, language is in the left hemisphere:
for roughly 99 % of right-handers and about two-
thirds of left-handers
In addition to language, the left hemisphere is
concerned with logical and analytical operations, and
higher mathematics.
 Language and the brain
Right-hemisphere specializations:
The right hemisphere is involved in recognizing
emotions, recognizing faces, and perceiving the
structures of things globally without analysis.
Unilateral right-hemisphere stroke can lead to
problems with both immediate and delayed memory,
when patients have trouble learning and
remembering individual words.
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 If the area of the brain that deals with faces, for example,
is damaged, the person will not be able to recognize the
faces of people, even close family, and even that person’s
own face when looking into a mirror!
 The right hemisphere also deals with music and non-
linguistic sounds, such as noises and animal sounds.
New research shows that the right hemisphere has some
language functions and can take over the complete
language functioning of the left hemisphere when that
hemisphere has been surgically removed or damaged.
 Language and the brain
Cognition is not just ‘in the head’; it extends well beyond
the skull and the skin. Non‐Cartesian Cognitive Science
views cognition as being embodied, environmentally
embedded, enacted, encultured, and socially distributed.
The Douglas Fir Group (2016) likewise recognizes
languages as emergent, social, integrated phenomena.
Language is the quintessence of distributed cognition.
Language cognition is shared across naturally occurring,
culturally constituted, communicative activities. Usage
affects learning and it affects languages, too. These are
essential components of a theory of language cognition.
 Language and the brain

Francis H.C. Crick (from Scientific American, September, 1979)

There is no scientific study more vital to man than the study of his own brain.
Our entire view of the universe depends on it.

Ask not what's inside your head, but what your head's inside of. (Mace, 1977, p. 43)