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PART III
Biological foundations of language
Brain and language

Language and the brain

• What is neurolinguistics?
- How the brain (neuro) permits us to have language (linguistics)

• Neurologists: Study brain and nerve systems.

• In the field of neurolinguistics: – Study human neurology and how behaviour breaks
down after damage to the brain and nervous system.

• Linguists: Study how language is structured.

• In the field of neurolinguistics: – How language structures can be instantiated in the
brain.

• Psychologists:
• Psycholinguists
– In the field of neurolinguistics: - Study language processing in normal individuals.

• Neuropsycholinguists
– Study the breakdown of cognitive abilities that result from brain damage
– In the field of neurolinguistics: - Study brain-damaged patients.

• Speech-language pathologists
– Professionals to provide therapy for language problems
– In the field of neurolinguistics
• contribute their special knowledge of aphasia and their clinical and theoretical
approaches.

• Cognitive scientists: – Scholars involved in the study of the processes involved in thinking
and theories that may explain them.
– In the field of neurolinguistics
• contribute to answering questions about the relationship of cognitive mechanisms with
language processing.
• suggest ways of using computer modelling to understand language performance.

• The objects of neurolinguistic study

– The two objects of study: • Language
• Neural components
– These can be divided into: • Actual permanent things
• Processes these permanent things are involved in.

• Linguistics:
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– Traditional levels of analysis: • Phonology

• Morphology
• Syntax
• Discourse
• Semantics
• Lexicon
• Other types of classifications relevant in neurolinguistics:
• Distinctions between: – oral and written language
– oral and visual-gestural language
– synthetic and analytic languages

• Neurology
– 19th century and part of 20th century:
• the gross areas of the brain: • External surface (cortex)
• Internal space (subcortical areas)
– grosser areas are composed of: • different cell types and different levels.
• no knowledge of how individual cells behave specifically in language processing.

• Two major schools in neurolinguistics:

– Localizationism
– Holistic

• Localizationism :
• 19th century
• Paul Broca observed:
– The left hemisphere was responsible for language.
– They understood:
– The central parts of the outer surface of the left hemisphere seemed more crucially
linked to language
– Because damage to other parts of the left hemisphere had very few consequences for
language abilities.

• Different patterns of language disorders, specifically aphasias, were observed:

• Areas within the left hemisphere cortical language area were parcelled out.
• With one area nearer the front of the head deemed responsible for producing language
and another, further back, for comprehension.

Brodmann’s Areas
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• In recent decades:
• Cortical stimulation has permitted to open up the skull and stimulate points on the
surface of the brain and to know which areas of the hemispheres are responsible for
language processing.

• Positron emission tomography (PET-scans) has permitted to observe less invasively

how areas of the brain operate. Therefore, it is possible to see a subject’s brain on a
computer screen, and different areas of the brain appear to light up while a healthy
person is undertaking certain language tasks.
– different patterns of activation can be seen for different language tasks.
– development of further studies on the localization of language areas.

• Holistic school
• According to this Holistic school Localizationism is a false way to divide language abilities.
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• According to Holistic school Language abilities are supported by larger parts of the brain.
• They focused on: – How areas of the brain were interconnected.
– On the ways language is dependent on cognitive abilities such
as memory, abstract thinking, attention etc.
• They prefer not to limit themselves to study delimited language phenomena and
language areas.

THE BRAIN

•The cortex:The upper surface of the brain, the “grey matter” that deals with many of the more
complex operations including: – Making connections with stored information.
– Analysing input.
– Controlling sophisticated muscular movements.

• The brain is divided into two hemispheres, right and left. These hemispheres are entirely
separate but they are connected by fibre bundles called -the corpus callosum-.
• Contralateral control is the left hemisphere controls movement and sensations on the right side
of the body. The right hemisphere is linked to the left side.

Left hemisphere Right hemisphere

• Numerical computation: • Spatial abilities

– exact calculation • Face recognition
– numerical comparison • Visual imagery
• Logic • Audiological stimuli: Music
• Routine or well rehearsed processing • Numerical computation
• Processing pleasurable experiences – approximate calculation
• Involved in decision-making processes – numerical comparison
– estimation
• Language: • Depression
– Linear reasoning functions • Processing novel situations
• Grammar
• Word production • Language:
• Literal meanings – Holistic reasoning functions:
• Accentuation
• Prosody (rhythm, stress, intonation)
• Pragmatics
• Contextual meanings
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•The cortex is distinguished by its convolutions: the hills and valleys known: > Gyry.
> Fissures or sulci.

•Certain gyri and sulci can be used to delimit the four lobes: – Frontal
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– Parietal
– Occipital
– Temporal
•The Rolandic fissure separates the frontal and the parietal lobes.
•The Sylvian fissure cuts through language area, with the temporal lobe below and the parietal
and frontal lobes above.
Cerebral lobes (Bear, Connors and Paradiso (2001:207)

).
•Frontal: Reasoning, planning, parts of speech, movement, emotions, and problem solving
•Parietal: Movement, orientation, recognition, perception of stimuli.
•Occipital: Visual processing.
•Temporal: Perception and recognition of auditory stimuli, memory, and speech.

CORTICAL AREAS
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•The cerebral cortex functional areas:

•Sensory: Receive sensory input
•Motor: Control movement of muscles
•Association areas: Complex functions: • Learning
• Decision making

Complex movements: • Writing

•Subcortical areas: The “white matter” is mainly made up of nerve cell fibres.
•They are responsible for: – Reflex actions
– Controlling functions such as breathing and heart beats.
•Thalamus and hypothalamus are part of the grey matter, it is primarily concerned with: sleep,
appetite, sexual desire, etc.
•White matter among them: – The Internal Capsule (implicated in aphasia.)
– Temporal isthmus
– The Arcuate Fasciculus: It connects anterior and posterior
cortical areas involved in language.
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Obler and Gjerlow (1999:21)

• Understanding and producing language:
–in the left hemisphere of the brain
–around the Sylvian sulcus
– Broca's area: Associated with the production of language, or language outputs
– Wernicke's area: Associated with the processing of words that we hear being spoken, or
language inputs.
Both connected by the Arcuate Fasciculus

• Verbal Association Area (Angular gyrus, inferior parietal lobe.)

– Area of the highest integration of sensory input.
– It has rich interconnections with all other association areas and it also processes abstract
thought and their relation to words.
– It is involved in conceptual comparisons, ordering of opposites, naming of objects and higher
logical operations.
Inferior parietal lobe
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• Volitional Association Area (Prefrontal cortex, frontal lobes)

– Receives fibers from all sensory systems: (vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell
– Very interconnected with the: • Limbic system (emotional responses)
• Verbal association area
• Spatial Association area
– It coordinates highly complex movements and it also is the "seat of the will", for all goal-
oriented behaviors, actions and intentions. Besides being able to focus on important tasks
through redundancy (screening out superfluous input) it also computes: Planning, Imagining,
Deciding, Attention regulation.
• Sign language (The same locations)
–These locations and areas do not appear to be specific to heard or spoken language.
They are broadly associated the individual’s primary language modality
•Language processing basics
–The Wernicke-Geschwind model
Repeating a spoken word

Repeating a written word

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• Indications that this W-G model is too simple:

–Language functions not restricted to left hemisphere.
• Important role of the right hemisphere in deep dislexia
• Importance of subcortical areas
• Brain damage has no clear-cut effects as the model predicts
• Electrical stimulation of different regions have the same effect
• Selective stimulation of Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas does not produce expected
results.
Summary
–Some areas of the brain are more important for language functions than others
–It is difficult to localize specific processes in specific brain areas
–It is likely that multiple routes in the brain are involved in language production and
comprehension
• Language processing is:
– sequential
– serial
–parallel
– It involves the activation of widespread areas
•of the right and left hemisphere and specific cortices in the left half of the cerebrum
• Language is also melodic and emotional
– It also requires activation of the right frontal and right temporal lobe
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• Right hemisphere
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– Understanding discourse and other minds

• Hough (1990); Kaplan, et al (1990); Beeman (1993; 1998); Brownell and Martino
(1998); Stemmer and Joanette (1998); Paradis (2003)
• Narrative scripts
• Interpretation
• Integration of information
• Conceptualization of a unit as a whole
• Construction of new conceptual models
• Inferences about other person’s beliefs and intentions
–Use of our knowledge of the world
–Coherence and cohesion