Language, Mind and

Cognition
Week 2:
Brain and Language
Location of language in the brain
Language loss: Aphasia

Prof. Maryluz Hoyos 2016

http://www.mayfieldclinic.com/Images/PE-AnatBrainFig3.jpg
 Brain Areas Involved in
Language
Broca’s Area:
Phonological processing and language
production. This role is facilitated by its
position close to the motor centers of the
mouth and the tongue.

Wernicke’s area:
Comprehension of language
1. Responds to spoken words, and words
spoken by someone else
http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/a/a_10/a_10_cr/a_10_cr_lan/a_10_cr_lan.html
 Brain Areas Involved in
Language
Supramarginal gyrus seems to be involved
in phonological and articulatory processing of
words

Angular gyrus:
seems more involved in semantic processing.
The right angular gyrus appears to be active as
well as the left, thus revealing that the right
hemisphere also contributes to semantic
processing of language.

http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/a/a_10/a_10_cr/a_10_cr_lan/a_10_cr_lan.html
 Aphasia

Can you mention the different types of

aphasia?

http://internetmedicine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/aphasia.jpg
Aphasia Classifications

• Broca’s (cortical motor)

.
 Broca’s Aphasia
• Broca’s (cortical motor) - slow, effortful halting speech, lacking
grammatical words
• Most also lost the ability to name persons or subjects (anomia)
• Can utter automatic speech (“hello”)
• Comprehension relatively intact
• Most also have partial paralysis of one side of the body (hemiplegia)
• If extensive, not much recovery over time
Wernicke’s Aphasia

• Wernicke’s (cortical sensory)

 Wernicke’s Aphasia
• Fluent but “empty” speech
• But contains many paraphasias
– “girl”-“curl”, “bread”-“cake”
• Grammatical inflections
• Normal prosody
• Syntactical but empty sentences
• Cannot repeat words or sentences
• Unable to understand what they read or hear
• Usually no partial paralysis
Taken from: Fields (2011). Psycholinguistics: A resourcebook for students.
 Types of Aphasia

Global Aphasia
Non-fluent
Impairment of receptive and expressive
skills.
Unable to say or understand more than a
few words.
 Types of Aphasia

Conduction Aphasia
Intact auditory comprehension.
Fluent (paraphrasic) speech production.
Poor speech repetition, particularly as the
phrases increase in length and complexity.
Speaking the written word Speaking the heard word

Images retrieved from: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/lang.html#hemi

“Evidence from brain imaging suggests that language is widely
distributed throughout the brain. There is even evidence that
different lexical sets (colours, foods, tools) may be stored in
different places. The brain seems to differentiate between two
types of language processing - with the central parts looking
after more rapid analytic operations (e.g. recognising
phonemes) and other parts looking after the slower, associative
operations (e.g. building meaning).” Fields (2019, p. 57)
 What type of aphasia?
Broca’s or Wernicke’s?

Well, this is… mother is away here working her

work out o’ here to get her better, but when
she is looking, the two boys in the other part.
One their small tile into her time here. She is
working another time because she’s getting to.
So two boys work together and one is sneaking
around here. Making his work and his further
funnas his time he had.
 What type of aphasia?
Broca’s or Wernicke’s?

Cookie jar… fall over… chair… water…

 REFERENCES
Aphasia. (2008, October). Retrieved from http://www.nidcd.nih.gov
"oh say can you say": The brain and language. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/lang.html
Vajda, E. (n.d.). Language and the brain. Retrieved from
http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test4materials/language_and_t
he_brain.htm
Fromkin et al. (2013)
Fields (2011). Psycholinguistics. A resourcebook for students.