Language and the brain camila contreras

Language and the Brain

Universidad de Santiago de ChileLic. En Educación en Inglés

Paradigmas LinguísticosProfesor: Miguel Farías

Camila Contreras

How is language actually stored in and process by the brain?

NeurolinguisticsNeurolinguistics the study of the neural and electrochemical bases of language development and use

PsycholinguisticsPsycholinguistics the study of the acquisition, storage, comprehension and production of language

Physical Features of the Brain• It is divided into two nearly symmetrical

halves

• Each part of the brain is responsible for processing certain kind of information

• They are connected by a bundle of nerves

Corpus callosum

• They communicate with each other

Cortex

• A one-quarter-inch thick membrane that covers the brain

• It makes human beings capable of higher cognitive functions

• It contains most of language centers

• It is covered with bumps and depression

• Even minor damage to the surface of the brain can result in language disorder

Auditory Cortex

• Responsible for receiving and identifying auditory signals and converting them into a form that can be interpreted by other areas of the brain

Visual Cortex

• It receives and interprets visual stimuli

• It is the storage site for pictoral images

Motor cortex

• It is located in the upper middle of each hemisphere

• It is responsible for sending signals to your muscles

Language Centers

• Production and comprehension of language

• They mainly only in the left hemisphere

Broca’s area

• Located at the base of motor cortex

• Responsible for organizing the articulatory patterns of language and directing the motor cortex when we want to talk

• Control the use of inflectional morphemes and function morphemes

Wernicke’s area

• Located near the back section of the auditory cortex

• It is involved in the comprehension of words and the selection of words when producing sentences

Arcuate Fasciculus

• A bundle of nerve fibers that connect Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area

• So that they share information

Mental lexicon looks up words via wernicke’s area then say them via broca’s area

Angular Gyrus

• Located between Wernicke’s area and the visual cortex

• It converts visual stimuli into auditory stimuli (and viceversa)

• Thus, we are allowed to match the spoken form of a word with the object it describes

The flow of Linguistic Information

How all the areas of the brain work together to process language

It depends on»Type of stimulus»Type of linguistic result

SpeakingWernicke’s area arcuate fasciculus broca’s

area motor cortex

ReadingVisual cortex angular gyrus wernicke’s area

UnderstandingAuditory cortex angular gyrus visual cortex

wernicke’s areabroca’s area motor cortex

Lateralization

• Each brain’s hemisphere is responsible for different cognitive functions

Left hemisphere Left hemisphere analytic reasoning, temporal ordering, arithmetic and language

Right Hemisphere Right Hemisphere processing music, perceiving non-linguistic sounds, performing task (visual and spatial skills or pattern recognition

• It happens in early childhood

• It can be recovered in initial stage if damaged

Contralateralization• The connections between the brain and

the body are almost completely contralateral

The right side of the body The right side of the body controlled by the left hemisphere

The left side of the body The left side of the body controlled by the right hemisphere

Evidence

• Dichotic Listening Test

• Split Brains Patients

• Hemispherictomies

Language Disorders

• Damage in the left hemisphere aphasia

• Aphasia Aphasia inability to perceive, process or produce language because of physical damage to the brain

• Linguistic skills affected depend on where the brain damage is

Broca’s Aphasia• Haltingly speaking

• Speech without inflections and function words

• Problems in producing

• Articulatory problems

• Difficulty matching the correct semantic interpretation to the syntactic order of the sentence

ExampleExaminer: Tell me, what did you do before

you retired?

Aphasic: Uh, uh, uh, uh, pub, par, partender, no.

Examiner: Carpenter?

Aphasic: (shaking head yes) Carpenter, tuh, tuh, tenty year.

Wernicke’s Aphasia

• Receptive disorders

• Misinterpreting what others say and responding in unexpected way

• Tendency to produce semantically incoherent speech

• Fluent but meaningless speech

Example

Examiner: Do you like it here in Kansas City?

Aphasic: Yes, I am.

Examiner: I’d like to have you tell me something about your problem

Aphasic: Yes, I, ugh, can’t hill all of my way. I can’t tal all of the things I do, and part of the part I can go alright………

Conduction Aphasia

• Damage to the arcuate fasciculus

• Sth like wernicke’s aphasia but showing signs of being able to comprehend the speech of others

• Problems in transmission

Alexia and Agraphia

• Both caused by angular gyrus damage

• Alexia Inability to read and comprehend written words

• Agraphia Inability to write words

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK29RAKDzf8