B.A.

III
Introduction to Linguistics – II
Language, Mind and Brain

This section will cover the relationship between language, mind and brain. It will also try to
understand the mechanism of language processing, development and acquisition process etc.

What is Neurolinguistics?

- Neurolinguistics deals with the biological and neural foundations of language.

- It studies the brain mechanisms and anatomical structure in relation to linguistic
competence and performance.
- Deals with the correlation between brain damage and speech and language deficits.
- Three fundamental questions in neurolinguisitcs:
1. Where in the brain are speech and language localized?
2. How does the nervous system encode and decode speech and language?
3. Are the components of language—phonology, syntax, semantics—
neuroanatomically distinct and therefore vulnerable to separate impairment?

Human Brain:

- Brain as the source of human language and cognition goes back more than 2000 years
with the Greek philosophers’ speculation about brain-mind relationship.
- But neither Plato nor Aristotle was able to recognize the brain’s crucial function in
cognition or language.
- Hippocrates (Greek physician, also known as father of medicine) was able to recognized
that the brain is the messenger of the understanding and the organ whereby wisdom and
knowledge is acquired. (From the quotes of Hippocratic Treatises on the Sacred Disease,
written c. 377 b.c.)

Structure of the brain:

- The most complex human organ consisting of 100 billion nerve cell (approx) and another
billion that interconnect them.
 - Cortex: the nerve cells that form the surface of the brain (gray matter).
 Decision-making organ.
 Receives messages from all sensory organs, initiates all voluntary and
involuntary actions.
 Store house of memories
- Cerebral hemisphere: One on the right and one on the left
- Joined by the corpus callosum, for communication between the two hemispheres

The nervous system:

- Central nervous system (CNS) comprising of the brain and spinal cord and peripheral
nervous system (PNS) comprising of other nerves extending towards all parts of the body
form an intricate communication network for governing the behavior of the body.
- Impulses from PNS are sorted, interpreted and responded by CNS.
- Neuron, the basic unit of nervous system, comprise of a cell, dendrites (receptor) and
axon (conductive mechanism).

Hierarchy in the central nervous system:

 Higher level – comprise of more complex structures like cerebral

hemisphere, responsible for voluntary activity
 Mid level – the brain stem: regulator of breathing, muscle tone, posture,
sleep and body temperature.
 Lower level – spinal cord and lower brain stem, are reflexive and
controlled by higher centers

Functions of the brain:

- The brain controls the motor and sensory activities as well as the thought processing.
- Left hemisphere controls the right side of the human body.
- Right hemisphere controls the left side.
- This is known as contralateral (acting in conjunction with an opposite side of the body)
brain function.
Localization of Language in the Brain:

- Which parts of the brain are responsible for human linguistic abilities?
- Jospeh Gall’s theory of Localization (early 19th century): Human cognitive abilities and
behaviors are localized at specific parts of the brain. Language located in the frontal lobes
of the brain evident from a young man with protruding eyes was quite articulate and
intelligent, as a result of overdeveloped brain materials. Discarded as a scientific theory,
but still upheld in scientific investigation of brain disorder.

Aphasia:

- A broad term encompassing numerous syndrome of communicative impairment resulting

mainly from brain damage or injury caused by disease or trauma.
- Studying Aphasia enable researchers to obtained invaluable clues to the organization of
speech and language in the human nervous system.
- Two types: Some aphasics labor to speak a single word, whereas others effortlessly
produce long but meaningless utterances.
1. Broca’s area: A French surgeon (Paul Broca) proposed in 1860 that language is
located at the frontal part of the brain’s left hemisphere based on the finding from
his patient who suffered language deficits after brain injury to the left frontal lobe.
Characteristic: Labored speech, word-finding difficulties, inability to form
sentences with syntactic rules, agrammatic language lacking function words like
articles, prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs etc.

2. Wernicke’s area: A German neurologist, Carl Wernicke, described (a decade

later) another variety of aphasia resulting from lesions in the temporal lobe of left
hemisphere. Characteristic: Produced fluent speech following syntactic rules but
semantically incoherent. Have difficulty naming objects and choosing words in
spontaneous speech. (Also known as jargon aphasia).
Lateralization:

- The process of localizing the language function to the left hemisphere of the brain is
termed as Lateralization. This has been confirmed by many research techniques.
- J. Wada’s (1949) experiment where the injection of sodium amytal into the main artery
on the language-dominant side of the brain induces temporary aphasia.
- Penfield and Roberts (1959) discovered that when electric current is applied to a brain
area involved in speech, the patient either had trouble talking or uttered a vowel-like cry.

Brain Plasticity (flexibility) and lateralization in early life:

- Though human brain is designed to specialize for language in the left hemisphere, the
right hemisphere is involved in early language development.
- Under certain circumstances like hemispherectomy (surgical removal of one of the
brain’s hemisphere) in children suffering from epilepsy, the right hemisphere can take
over the language functions of the left hemisphere.
- But it doesn’t work in adults as the plasticity of brain decrease with age.

Split brain:

- Left brain is superior for linguistic processing like rhythmic perception, temporal-order
judgments, and arithmetic calculations. (Thinking, reasoning). Process stimuli
analytically.
- Right brain does better in non-verbal information like pattern-matching tasks,
recognizing faces, spatial task, drawing, music etc (visual effect). Process stimuli
holistically.

Left hemisphere Right Hemisphere

Logic Creativity
Analysis Imagination
 Think in words visualization
writing drawing
Language Non-verbal feelings
Reading recognition and memory of melodies
Calculation nonverbal environmental sound
Analytic processing Holistic processing
Right visual field Left visual field

Specific Language Impairment (SLI):

- Language impairment ( children specially) without brain lesions

- No other cognitive deficits, not autistic or retarded, no perceptual problems.
- Only linguistic ability and only specific aspects of grammar affected.
- Have problem with the use of function words – articles, prepositions, auxiliary etc and
inflectional suffixes on nouns (-s, -er etc) and verbs (-ed, -ing).
- This shows that the grammatical faculty is separate from other cognitive systems.

Dissociations of language and Cognition:

- Savant – intellectually handicapped but remarkably talented in other aspects.

- Human calculator, calendrical calculator.
- Language savant – have highly complex grammar of languages but lacks nonlinguistic
abilities.
- Laura (nonverbal IQ 41-44) lacked basic counting principles, cannot read, write or draw;
limited memory power etc but can produced syntactically complex sentences and can
detect and correct grammatical errors. Grammar is well developed, but less-developed
abilities to associate linguistic expressions with objects etc.
- Christopher (nonverbal IQ 60-70) cannot button his shirt, or cut his finger nails or clean
the house but has rich linguistic competence and can translate some 15-20 languages
quickly into English with minimum error. He learned those languages from speakers
around him or grammar books.
 - The case of Christopher and Laura suggest that linguistic ability is different from other
general intelligence. Specific areas of the brain are devoted to language and injury to
these areas disrupts language.

The Critical Period:

- There is a fixed period of time where the ability to learn language is developed, i.e. from
birth till middle childhood. Past this period, learning language becomes difficult and can
never be fully achieved. This is known as the Critical age hypothesis.
- Language acquisition is swift and easy during this period without any external
intervention.
- This notion is true to many species – duckling learning to waddles like a duck during the
first 9-21 hours after hatching, certain birds developing their song during specific
window period etc.
- Wild and feral child unable to speak or know any language when reintroduced into
society. Amala and Kamala (1920) found in India supposedly said to have been reared by
wolves.

Case study of Genie and Chelsea:

- Genie (1970) who was confined to a small room in isolation with minimum human
contact from 18th months till 14 years.
- Apart from learning a large number of vocabulary, she wasn’t able to acquire grammar
even after years of exposure.
- Her utterance lacked function words; she couldn’t form complex sentences and produced
utterances like those of two years old children.
- Genie’s language was lateralized to the right hemisphere, similar to split-brain and left
hemispherectomy patients.
- Her case demonstrates that language is not the same as communication as she was a
powerful nonverbal communicator.
- Chelsea is another example of critical-age hypothesis. She was born deaf but wrongly
diagnosed as retarded until she was thirty one.
 - When finally diagnosed as deaf, she was given hearing aids along with extensive
language training. She did acquired large vocabulary but was not able to develop
grammar.

Take away:

- Language is localized in the left hemisphere of the brain.

- Injury to specific part of the brain results into different type of Aphasia.
- The components of language – lexicon, phonology, syntax and semantics are
neuroanatomically distinct.
- Grammatical faculty is separate from other cognitive systems (SLI ).
- Children cannot fully acquire language if they are not exposed to it within the critical
period when the brain is prepared to develop language.
- But critical period is specific to the acquisition of grammatical abilities, not for all
aspects of language as there is a possibility to acquire words and other conversational
skills even after that period.