BRAIN AND LANGUAGE

Dr Gessica De Angelis
deangelg@tcd.ie

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC

 OUTLINE

Neurolinguistics
The brain
anatomy (left and right hemisphere)
how neurons communicate
localization and aphasia (Broca and Wernicke)
speech errors
bilingualism and multilingualism
 NEUROLINGUISTICS
Neurolinguistics is a branch of linguistics that
studies the relationship between the structure
of the brain and the production and
comprehension of language.

Questions of interest are:

Where is language located in the brain?
How does language develop?
THE BRAIN

The biggest and most

important part of the human
brain for cognitive function is
the CEREBRUM which is
composed of TWO
HEMISPHERES (right and
left) and FOUR LOBES
(frontal, temporal, parietal and
occipital)
 THE BRAIN

It is composed of a right and left hemisphere, joined

by the corpus callosum which is a bundle of nerves
that allows the two hemispheres to communicate with
each other.
 THE BRAIN
The left hemisphere controls the right part of the body
The right hemisphere controls the left part of the body

If you move your right hand, it is then the left part of the
brain that processes the information. This is referred to as
CONTRALATERAL brain function.

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC

Left hemisphere (right hand control) Right hemisphere (left hand control)

Language Emotions
Writing Spatial awareness
It recognises letters, numbers and Creativity
words Imagination
Intuition
Sequential Looks at wholes
Analytical
Looks at parts It recognises faces, places and
Mathematics objects
Logic
 
 FIVE AMAZING FACTS ABOUT
YOUR BRAIN
Source: https://theconversation.com/five-amazing-facts-about-your-brain-132621
The brain controls basic functions (breathing, movement) but also complex cognitive processes (memory,
language, emotions)

1. It is always active. It has to keep us alive!

2. It is constantly receiving information:

sensory information (what flows into the brain)
Example: muscle pain
motor information (what goes out of the brain)
Example: moving your hand
 FIVE AMAZING FACTS ABOUT
YOUR BRAIN
3. About 20% of your body’s blood goes to the brain
The brain needs oxygen from blood in order to maintain brain functions
Average male – 70 millilitre of blood around the body per heartbeat = 14 millilitre of blood
goes to the brain

4. Brain surgery doesn’t hurt

The brain does not have pain receptors
Example: Woman plays the violin during brain surgery
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-london-51557044
 FIVE AMAZING FACTS ABOUT
YOUR BRAIN

5. Brain damage can change who we are

Phineas Gage, a 25-year old man with a damaged frontal lobe due to a work accident

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1114479/
 HOW NEURONS COMMUNICATE

It is estimated that the human brain contain 86 billion neurons

Neurons communicate using both electrical signals called ‘action potentials’ and
chemical neurotransmitters

When an electrical signal reaches the gap between neurons which is called synapse, it is
transformed into a chemical signal

https://www.brainfacts.org/core-concepts/how-neurons-communicate
 LOCALIZATION AND APHASIA
In the 19th century, Joseph Gall proposed the theory of localization, according to
which different abilities are located in different parts of the brain.

We now have a good understanding of the relationship between different parts of the
brain and language, and this knowledge comes from a large amount of information on
brain injury.

Aphasia refers to language deficits that are caused by a stroke, injury, seizure, brain
tumour or even infection. We have evidence of language localization from aphasia
research.
 PAUL BROCA (1824 -1880)

1860
The French surgeon Broca indicated that language would be in
the frontal lobe, in the left part of the brain, (now called Broca’s
area).
His information at the time was based on an aphasic patient who
suffered language deficits following brain injury

Activity: Watch the video and explain what kind of

communication difficulties the interviewee has.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWC-cVQmEmY
 BROCA’S APHASIA
Broca’s aphasia is associated with the anterior speech cortex which controls syntax

Patients display:
 Word-finding difficulties
 Poor ability to form grammatical sentences
 Production of agrammatic sentences (without articles, prepositions, nouns, verbs
or other function words)
BROCA’S APHASIA
(FROMKIN ET AL, P.450)
 BROCA’S APHASIA

Comprehension

Broca’s patients also find it difficult to understand sentences that do not follow the
canonical Subject Verb Object (SVO)order

It is easier for them to understand the sentence “which girl kissed the boy?” then
“which girl did the boy kiss?”
 CARL WERNICKE
(1848 -1905)
The German neurologist Carl Wernicke identified another
area in the left temporal lobe connected to speech, more
specifically the posterior speech cortex which controls
meaning (semantics)

Activity: Watch the video and explain what kind of

communication difficulties the interviewee has.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oef68YabD0
 CARL WERNICKE (1848 -1905)

Patients with Wernicke’s aphasia may produce fluent grammatical speech but their
production is typically incoherent

Lack of coherence
Difficulty in finding words in spontaneous speech
Lexical substitutions (speech errors)
Jargon and nonsense words
 CARL WERNICKE (1848 -1905)

Examples (Fromkin et al: 451)

Aphasics often suffer from word-finding difficulties but may
display different types of selective impairments. This does not
mean that they are cognitively or intellectually impaired.

Types of aphasia
Broca’s aphasia – affects the fluency of speech
Wernicke’s aphasia – speech is fluent but not comprehensible
Global aphasia – total loss, only a few words are retained
Anomic aphasia – word-finding difficulties in writing and speech
Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) – progressive loss that can
occur over a few years. Memory and cognitive functions are not
affected.
 MODULARITY
The different deficits identified in different parts of the brain suggest a MODULAR
organisation of language in the brain, i.e. mental grammars are organised in distinct
components or modules.

Speech errors provide information about language processing that can help us
understand production and comprehension processes
 SPEECH ERRORS
SOME EXAMPLES

Phonological substitutions
Anticipation - Alsho share
Perseveration - John gave the goy a ball

Lexical Selection Errors

Semantically based - He rode his bicycle tomorrow (yesterday)
Phonologically based - He has a new commuter (computer)
Morphologically based - It waits to pay (pays to wait)

Source
https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/linguistics/lectures/05lect16.html
Substitutions errors are often similar to the intended target in sounds

Pool might be substituted with tool

Sable for table

Substitutions often involve words that are similar in meaning

Table for chair

Boy for girl

Speech errors tell us that we plan speech before we articulate it

There are building blocks (syllables, morphemes, phonemes) that we use when
processing speech

These errors remind us of errors healthy speakers also make, but they are more
frequent in aphasic patients

They suggest a neural connection between semantically (meaning) and phonetically

(sound) similar words

Words are not organised in lists, but in a network of connections.

 TIP-OF-THE-TONGUE
Have you ever experienced difficulties in finding a word?

This is called the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon (difficulties in retrieving words)

Speakers can generally retrieve the initial sound and are often aware of the number of
syllables a word has

Typical with less frequent vocabulary

 IS LANGUAGE EXCLUSIVELY IN THE LEFT HEMISPHERE?

No.
Patients who have undergone left-hemisphere surgery have lost some but not all of
their acquired language skills

They often lose the ability to speak but not to understand

 Weinreich (1953) and Ervin and Osgood (l954) proposed the
concepts of compound, coordinate and subordinate bilingualism
• Compound – one semantic system, two linguistic codes. Often
WHAT found in simultaneous acquisition
HAPPENS IF • Coordinate – two semantic systems, two linguistic codes.
YOU SPEAK Often found when languages are acquired at different times
MORE • Subordinate – one language is weaker than the other
THAN ONE
LANGUAGE
?
 Evidence indicates that in multilinguals
aphasic patients only one language can be
affected, which is evidence of separation
MULTILINGUALIS
M AND APHASIA
In early acquisition, research shows a
substantial overlap between first and second
languages
DEVELOPING SEVERAL LANGUAGES
Functional MR images also
show prefrontal and
frontoparietal activity when
during a silent word
generation task in the native
language (A), a fluent second
language (B) and a less fluent
foreign language (C)

(source: Yetkin et al.,1996)

 REFERENCES
Ervin, S. M., & Osgood, C. E. (1954). Second language learning and bilingualism.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 139-145

Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., Hyams, N. (2017) An introduction to Language (11th

edition). Boston: Cengage

Weinreich, U. (1953). Languages in Contact. The Hague: Mouton.

Yetkin, Ozkan & Yetkin, Zerrin & Haughton, Victor & Cox, R.W. (1996). Use of
functional MR to map language in multilingual volunteers. American journal of
neuroradiology, 17, 473-7