12 Language and the Brain (Yule) PDF

Preview

Summary

Warning: TT: undefined function: 32 Warning: TT: undefined function: 32Summarized by Zahra Al-HashimyBook: The Study of LanguageAuthor: George YuleEdition: 5 thCHAPTER 12   *   Language and the brain Neurolinguistics neurolinguistics – The branch of linguistics concerned with the brain mechan...

Description

Summarized by Zahra Al-Hashimy Book: The Study of Language Author: George Yule Edition: 5th CHAPTER 12   *    Language and the brain

 Neurolinguistics  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.  neurolinguistics – The study of the relationship between language and the brain

 Language areas in the brain  Broca’s area “anterior speech cortex”  (1)  Broca’s area – a part of the brain in the left hemisphere involved in speech production

* damage to this specific part of the brain was related to extreme difficulty in producing spoken language

 Wernicke’s area “posterior speech cortex”  (2)  Wernicke’s area – a part of the brain in the left hemisphere involved in language comprehension

*damage to this part of the brain was found among patients who had speech comprehension difficulties.  The motor cortex (3) and the arcuate fasciculus (4)  motor cortex– a part of the brain that controls muscle movement  arcuate /ˈɑːkjuːɪt,-ˌeɪt/ fasciculus /fəˈsɪkjʊləs/ – a bundle of nerve fibers connecting Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area in the left hemisphere of the brain

 The localization view  localization view – the belief that specific aspects of linguistic ability have specific locations in the brain 1. The word is heard and comprehended via Wernicke’s area. 2. This signal is then transferred via the arcuate fasciculus to Broca’s area where preparations are made to generat e a spoken version of the word. 3. A signal is then sent to part of the motor cortex to physically articulate the word.

 Tongue tips and slips * Minor production difficulties may provide possible clues to how our linguistic knowledge is organized within the brain.

 The tip of the tongue phenomenon  tip of the tongue phenomenon – the experience of knowing a word, but being unable to access it and bring it to the surface in order to say it

 malapropism / ˈmæləprɒpˌɪzəm/ – a speech error in which one word is used instead of another with a similar beginning, end and number of syllables (e.g. medication used instead of “meditation”)

 Slip of the tongue  slip of the tongue – a speech error in which a sound or word is produced in the wrong place, as in “black bloxes” (instead of “black boxes”)  spoonerism – a slip of the tongue in which two parts of words or two words are switched, as in “a dog of bag food” (for “a bag of dog food”)

Slips of the brain

 Slips of the brain  perseveration – a type of slip of the tongue in which a sound carries over from one word to the following word(s), as in black bloxes (“black boxes”)  anticipation – a type of slip of the tongue in which a sound is used in a word in anticipation of that sound in a following word, as in a tup of tea (“cup of tea”)  exchange – a type of slip of the tongue in which sounds in two words are switched, as in you’ll soon beel fetter (“feel better”)

 Slip of the ear  slip of the ear – a processing error in which one word or phrase is heard as another, as in hearing great ape when the utterance was “gray tape”

 Aphasia  aphasia – an impairment of language function due to localized brain damage that leads to difficulty in understanding and/or producing language

 Broca’s aphasia  Broca’s aphasia – a language disorder in which speech production is typically reduced, distorted, slow and missing grammatical markers  agrammatic speech – the type of speech without grammatical markers, often associated with Broca’s aphasia

 Wernicke’s aphasia  Wernicke’s aphasia – a language disorder in which comprehension is typically slow while speech is fluent, but vague and missing content words  anomia1 – a language disorder in which it is difficult to find words, often associated with Wernicke’s aphasia

 conduction aphasia

1

A form of aphasia in which the patient is unable to recall the names of everyday objects.

 conduction aphasia – a language disorder associated with damage to the arcuate fasciculus in which repeating words or phrases is difficult

 Dichotic listening  dichotic listening – an experiment in which a listener hears two different sounds simultaneously, each through a different earphone

 Left brain, right brain right-ear advantage – the fact that humans typically hear speech sounds more readily via the right ear specializations processing type

right hemisphere non-language sounds holistic processing

left hemisphere language sounds analytic processing

 The critical period  lateralization (lateralized) – divided into a left side and a right side, with control of functions on one side or the other (used in describing the human brain)  lateralization, lateralized –Terms used to refer to cognitive functions localized to one or the other hemisphere of the brain.  critical period – the time from birth to puberty during which normal first language acquisition can take place...