Lia Aftanty / 21202241042 / PBI B

Summary of Brain and Language

The study of language has been crucial to understanding the brain–mind relationship. The
study of the biological and neural foundations of language is called neurolinguistics (the branch
of linguistics concerned with the brain mechanisms that underlie the acquisition and use of
human language; the study of the neurobiology of language). The brain consists of 10 billion
neurons and billions of fibres.

A. The Human Brain

Cortex The approximately 10 billion neurons that form the outside layer of
the brain; also referred to as ‘grey matter’.
Cerebral hemispheres The left and right halves of the brain, joined by the corpus callosum.
Corpus callosum The nerve fibres connecting the right and left cerebral hemispheres.
Contralateral Refers to the transmission of sensory information from one side of
the body (left/ right) to the opposite cerebral hemisphere (right/left).

B. The Localisation of Language and the Brain

Organology is the practice of which is determining personality traits and intellectual ability by
examination of the bumps on the skull. Phrenology later introduced to America by Johann Spurzheim. He
constructed elaborate maps and skull models in which language is located directly under the eye.
C. Aphasia

Aphasia is “language loss or disorders condition following brain damage”. A front

(anterior) part of the left hemisphere of the brain, damage to which causes agrammatism or
Broca’s aphasia; also called Broca’s region. Lateralisation refers to cognitive functions localised
to one or the other side of the brain.

Different aspects of language are selectively impaired, and the kind of impairment is
generally related to the location of the brain damage. Because of it, research on patients with
aphasia has provided a great deal of information about how language is organised in the brain.

a) Broca’s Aphasia
A language disorder usually resulting from damage to Broca’s region in which the patient
has difficulty with certain aspects of syntax, especially functional categories; also called
agrammatism.
b) Wernicke’s Aphasia
The type of aphasia resulting from damage to Wernicke’s area in which the patient often
produces semantically incoherent language
c) Jargon Aphasia
A form of aphasia in which phonemes are substituted, resulting in nonsense words; often
produced by people who have severe Wernicke’s aphasia.

D. Dyslexia

The term dyslexia refer to reading disorders; a cover term for the various types of reading
impairment. Many word substitutions are made by aphasics who become dyslexic after brain
damage. They are called acquired dyslexics because before their brain lesions, they were normal
readers (unlike developmental dyslexics, who have difficulty learning to read).

The loss of ability to read correctly by people who were previously literate, following brain
damage.
 All these errors provide evidence that the mental dictionary has content words and function
words in different compartments, and that these two classes of words are processed in different
brain areas or by different neural mechanisms, further supporting the view that both the brain and
language are structured in a complex, modular fashion.

E. Tip-of-the-Tongue

The language difficulties suffered by aphasics aren’t caused by any general cognitive /
intellectual impairment / loss of motor / sensory control of the nerves & muscles of the speech
organs / hearing apparatus. Aphasics can produce and hear sounds. Whatever loss they suffer has
to do only with the language faculty (or specific parts of it).

The kind of selective impairment that we find in people with aphasia has provided
important information regarding where and how language is localised in the brain and tells us
that language is a separate cognitive module.

F. Brain Imaging Technology

Modern non-invasive brain recording technologies (CT scans and MRI) can reveal lesions
in the living brain shortly after the damage occurs. Positron emission tomography (PET) and
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans provide images of the brain in action.

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a brain imaging technique that is beginning to be used

to answer specific questions about how language develops in the brain, and how language is
processed by adults. MEG measures the magnetic fields (SQUIDs (Superconducting Quantum
Interference Devices)) that are generated by the brain whenever we process information.
G. Experimental Evidence Of Brain Organisation

a) Split Brain

Split brain is the result of an operation for epilepsy in which the corpus callosum is
severed, thus separating the brain into its two hemispheres.

b) Dichotic Listening

An experimental method for brain research in which subjects hear different auditory
signals in the left and right ears.

c) Event Related Potentials

Event-related potentials (ERPs) is electrical signals emitted from different areas of the
brain in response to different kinds of stimuli.

H. The Cerebral Cortex

the left hemisphere is predefined to be the

language hemisphere
children with early left-brain lesions show
Left Hemisphere impairment in their ability to form phrases and
sentences
the normal functions of the left hemisphere can
be taken over by the right hemisphere
the right side plays a role in the very early
stages of language acquisition
Children with prenatal, perinatal, or childhood
brain lesions in the right hemisphere may
exhibit delays and impairments in babbling and
Right Hemisphere
vocabulary learning
Children who undergo a right
hemispherectomy before 2 y.o. donʼt develop
language, even though they still have a left
hemisphere

I. The Critical Period

The critical period assumes the ability to learn a native language develops from birth to
middle childhood. Children who are language deficient during this critical period show an
unusual pattern of brain lateralization.
 EXAMPLE 1: Ducklings, for example, for a period of nine to twenty-one hours after
hatching, will follow the first moving object they see, whether visible or walking like a duck or
not.

EXAMPLE 2: Children who raised in an environment of extreme social isolation. The

most dramatic cases were those described as 'wild' or 'wild' children.

J. Specific Language Impairment

Specified language impairment (SLI) is a term used to describe people who do not have
cognitive or perceptual deficits but still struggle with language acquisition. These children’s
cognitive ability is normally assessed by non-verbal IQ and is in the normal range. These kids
may struggle with some linguistic ideas.

Studies on genetic illnesses also show that one cognitive domain might develop correctly
while other cognitive domains develop abnormally, highlighting the language's solid biological
foundation. Turner syndrome is a chromosomal defect that causes children to have severe visual
and spatial cognitive deficiencies in addition to normal language and excellent reading ability.

K. The Development of Language

In trying to understand the development of language, researchers have debated the role
played by the vocal tract and the ear. It has, for example, been suggested that speech could not
have developed in non-human primates because the anatomical differences such as the vocal
track and brain which lead to the incapable of .producing a large enough inventory of speech
sounds. According to this hypothesis, the development of language is linked to the evolutionary
development of the speech production and perception apparatus. This, of course, would be
accompanied by changes in the brain and the nervous system towards greater complexity. Such a
view implies that the languages of our human ancestors of millions of years ago may have been
syntactically and phonologically simpler than any language known to us today.

For humans who are born deaf and learn sign languages that are used around them that the
ability to hear speech sounds is not a necessary condition for the acquisition and use of language.
The lateralisation evidence from ERP and imaging studies of people using sign language, as well
as evidence from sign language aphasia, shows that sign language is organised in the brain like
spoken language, even there’s no sound involved.