JURNAL ARBITRER - VOL. 6 NO.

2 (2019)

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Review

The Role of Neurolinguistics for Language and

Speech Disorders
Gusdi Sastra1, Mohamad Saiful Haq2, Handoko Handoko3
1,2
Faculty of Humanities, Andalas University, Padang, Indonesia
3
Academy of Malay Studies, University of Malaya, Malaysia

SUBMISSION TRACK A B S T R A C T
Recieved: September 16, 2019
Final Revision: October 17, 2019 This paper explains the significance of neurolinguistics as one
Available Online: October 23, 2019 of interdisciplinary fields of linguistics encompassing the
analytical procedures on individual speech disorders in
KEYWORD producing and using language. The result of analysis is used
for designing a model and strategy to improve their language
Neurolinguistics, Language regions, Speech capacity. Neurolinguistics roadmap covers some previous
therapy, Bioacoustics, Brain hemispheres. researches done by Sastra et all since 2006. Those studies
investigate language and speech disorders including thinking
CORRESPONDENCE
ailments, and answer the inherent question on neurolinguistics
E-mail: [email protected] contribution for addressing the individual problems to express
themselves. Those problems are caused by some disorders on
the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Science wise,
neurolinguistics will always develop because the language
phenomena always happen in human life through thinking and
speech.

I. INTRODUCTION applied psycholinguistics (the application of

The rapid development of psycholinguistics all sub-disciplines of psycholinguistics into
consists of the following sub-disciplines other fields such as education, neurology,
(Chaer, 2003) such as theoretical psychiatry, literary criticism, and
psycholinguistics (focuses on human mental communication).
aspects in language use), psycholinguistics of
growth and development (focuses on first and Those sub-disciplines of psycholinguistics
second language acquisition), social develop on its own thanks to the birth of
psycholinguistics (on social aspects of psycholinguistics in 1953. R. Brown opened
language as an internal bind), educational psycholinguistic special program at Ph.D.
psycholinguistics (language and language level. Eric Lenneberg graduated as the first
teaching), experimental psycholinguistics (on scientist in this field. However,
the experiments of language activities and psycholinguistics was believed to be born in
verbal behavior), neurological 1955 when Lenneberg conducted his first
psycholinguistics and neuro- research. Lenneberg’s research proves that
psycholinguistics (on the relationship of the humans have a biological tendency to
language, language in use, and human brain), acquire language. The animals do not have
this behavioral trait. There are some reasons

DOI: https://doi.org/10.25077/ar.6.2.147-154.2019 Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International. Some rights reserved

 GUSDI SATRIA / JURNAL ARBITRER - VOL. 6. NO. 2 (2019)

for that as follow: 1) There are specific Furthermore, Wernicke is the first researcher
regions in human brain for language who explains the differences of expressive
development and use, 2) All human babies aphasia found by Broca from the receptive
share similar way of acquiring and developing aphasia. Expressive aphasia causes human to
language, 3) there are many obstacles to stop be able to comprehend the utterance but has
human language development, 4) Other living no capacity to speak it up directly. Moreover,
being on earth cannot learn language like the the people suffered from receptive aphasia
humans do, 5) All languages in the world cannot comprehend the utterance but they
share the universal aspects. have the capacity to speak up in wrong
grammatical rules. Wernicke show the
Moreover, psycho-neurology or neuro- relationship of receptive disorder with the
psycholinguistics also developed on a good damage in temporal lobes on the left
course. The neurologists often asked about the hemisphere of the brain. Broca explains the
process of human brain processing the expressive aphasia occurs because of the
language input and programming the damage on the regions closed to motoric
language output. The linguists, on the other cortex, whereas, the receptive aphasia,
hand, were attracted to study the verbal according to Wernicke, happens caused by the
aspects occurring if someone suffered from damage in the regions closed to auditory
language disorder caused by brain ailments. cortex on the rear-end of left-brain
There were more researches on the hemisphere. This cortex regulates all audio
relationship of language and the brain. stimulation and utterance.
Therefore, neuro-psycholinguistics was
finally known as neurolinguistics. This era Both hemispheres of the brain have different
began since the dawn of joint research of functions for sure, but language wise, their
neurologists and linguists on observing the function support each other. The segmental
human brain and language. function of language regarding the
grammatical rules is regulated by the brain
Both neurologists, Broca and Wernicke, study left hemisphere, but language has no meaning
the localization of brain function and its without supra-segmental aspects such as tone
relationship with language disorder. Broca and intonation controlled by the brain right
found Pincas P. Gage, a worker in a factory hemisphere. The use of language for
suffered from a serious injury caused by an communication is also controlled by other
explosion propelling the iron bar thrusted pragmatic aspects like feeling, meaning, and
deeply into his cheek and protruded from his any other communicative components of the
forehead. This worker survived the accident human utterances. The right hemisphere of
until 12 years later. He did not have any human brain regulates this function. This
thinking disorder whatsoever, but he showed phenomenon shows human emotional
a language disorder grammatically. His quotient is based on the function of brain right
attitude also underwent some changes, he hemisphere (Dharmaperwira-Prins, 2004). In
became more emotional, less patient, and full some cases, the right hemisphere of the brain
of anger. This case proves that there is a can take over some function of the left
different brain function regulated by left and hemisphere. It is not about the right
right hemispheres. Serious injury on left side hemisphere taking over the full function of the
of the brain will damage one’s language left hemisphere like what happens to the left-
proficiency, whereas the injury on the right handed people. Precisely, the right
side of the brain does not have any impact to hemisphere connects the language regulated
human language capacity whatsoever. Thus, it by left hemisphere of the brain to the aspects
is evident that the language function regulated of perception, emotion, and the way of using
by the left hemisphere of human brain. language.

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Therefore, the use of both hemispheres is II. DISCUSSION

required for better communication in human
2.1 Neurolinguistics
life including verbal and non-verbal
communication. The verbal communication is Neurolinguistics also defines as language
supported by human capacity to use language neurology, meaning, an interdisciplinary
although most people do not share the same linguistics studying human brain functions on
proficiency. There are also normal and language comprehension and processing.
abnormal language capacity. That is there to This discipline also studies the disorders in
it any way. Being normal in using language understanding and producing language
equals to being able to use language in proper (Arifuddin, 2010; Sastra, 2011). This field
linguistic rules such as grammatical aspects, explains the human brain structures normally
tone, and intonation. On the other hand, being required in language processing before
abnormal is all about suffering from disorders comprehending one’s lingual symptoms
in neurological cells and psychological through verbal expression and capability in
aspects regulating the use of language for the communication.
communication and interaction at the
individual level. This so called abnormal also The are some neurolinguistic rules as follow:
means being incapable in the context of 1) brain damage hurts language processing,
normal human. It causes the failure in whereas the injuries in the heart, lungs, liver
communication. and kidney do not have a direct impact to
language function. It is evident that the brain
People with abnormal language use found in is an organ for the center of language
numbers in the society. This abnormality is processing. The brain damage often causes
caused by some factors such as the specific language dysfunction so called the
neurological damage in the language regions aphasia; (2) the damage on the left
inside the brain as a result of serious injury, hemisphere causes the problems in processing
the damage in articulatory organs, and stress. the language, meaning, even though one can
Moreover, there is also another case called listen to the utterance but she or he cannot
cortical motoric aphasia, meaning, he or she comprehend those utterances. The damage in
has lost the capability to express the thought the right hemisphere does not cause this
in the utterance (Kusumoputro, 1993). disorder. Mostly the damage occurs on the left
Someone with this syndrome is actually able hemisphere of the cerebrum.
to comprehend both written and oral
expression but they have no capability of The left hemisphere regulates many functions
verbal expression since they barely including language processing, whereas the
understand non-verbal expressions. right hemisphere is responsible for other
Furthermore, the dysfunction on both left and capabilities such as distance and visio-spatial
right hemispheres of the human brain also processing, language and mind creativity,
cause many disorders in verbal and non- emotion, pragmatic control, later it develops
verbal expression. These disorders hurt the as neuro-pragmatics, a study on individual
communication. communication considering the aspects of
socio-cultural and the environment of the
In this era of technology, there are factors speakers and hearers. (3) The brain damage
causing verbal and emotional disorders that on frontal region also causes disorders in
also result language and speech disorders. In responding to linguistic stimulation for
essence, neurolinguistics is a discipline for speaking and writing, whereas the damage on
observing and studying those disorders in a rear-end location causes disorders in listening
wider conceptual spectrum including and reading. Different hemispheres regulate
linguistic and non-linguistic aspects. different mental function. It defines as the
function of localization.

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Therefore, the damage on left side of the brain Thus, the patience suffered from aphasia
also disrupts the process of language experiences many difficulties in speaking
understanding. The brain damage also causes caused by the paralysis of the articulatory
disorders for understanding the senses of muscles. This paralytic state occurs because
smell (agnosia) such as the capability to of the damage in motoric neurons in the center
recognize the aroma of orange, durian and of neurons or in some regions of the brains.
other fruits. This problem also causes the lack These damages are no physically visible, but
of ability to do a common motion such as the brain regions experience disorders such as
licking the lips under a command, or speaking the left and right hemispheres, and the brain
clearly. It is evident, a damage of the brain stem.
causes disorders in language processing
(aphasia) and is possibly responsible for the The brain stem functions for transferring the
inability to understand the sensory organ for message from the brain or for the brain. The
the smells (agnosia). This problem also causes disorder in this region causes the paralysis and
people to do spontaneous and uncontrollable other disorders in the sensory organs either
motion (apraxia), and the obvious disorders to left or right side of the body. This brain stem
speak clearly (dysarthria). also has its own function for regulating the
motion of the eyes and consciousness. It
2.2 Language and Speaking disorders controls other motions such as swallowing,
Language disorder is the inability to produce throwing up the sputum and coughing.
and understand any utterance fluently and Language wise, the brain stem regulates the
correctly (aphasia). Blumstein (1985) states words construction and the utterance
the one suffered from motoric aphasia proficiency, but it is not responsible for the
experiences difficulties to say words. The message or meaning. The people suffered
patience shows a great effort just to say a from stroke experience the difficulty to say
word. Therefore, the patience shows verbal words or to speak the words although they
expressions in mix results, some words are clearly understand what they really mean.
fluently spoken, the other are not. Bastiaanse This condition defines as dysarthria.
(1995) put aphasia into three categories as
follow: 1) fluent aphasia, 2) non-fluent Kohn (1993) states the patience of Broca
aphasia, 3) sensory aphasia. aphasia shows a strange phenomenon, they
have difficulty to speak up. The errors also
Fluent and non-fluent aphasia cause many occur on the initial syllable and the repetitive
issues in human utterances and the way of syllable. Although they can produce the
using the organs of articulatory. The damage phoneme but it is repeated on wrong syllable.
occurs in Broca region is the causal factor. The repetition occurs on the syllable and
Obler & Gjerlow (2000) states the injury in sound indicates non-fluent aphasia.
43rd area of Brodmann taxonomy causes the Moreover, temporary stop with or without
Broca syndrome. Geshwind (1981) explains utterances mostly occurs.
the Broca region is closed to the motoric
cortex on frontal hemisphere. It regulates the A temporary stop done by the Broca aphasia
face muscles, tongue, chin, and throat. The patience shows an attempt to produce a
stroke attacks to Broca region will render the correct sound and syllable. This aspect only
left side of the face paralyzed. The speech happens to the fluent patience, not only the
muscles are also in paralysis causing the one suffered from the Broca aphasia but also
evident disorders in verbal expressions, other categories of language disorders such as
meaning, the patience undergoes speech or stammering. Actually, most people once
language disorders. experience normal disorders in language use
such as temporary stop, or repetitive words,
but the problem of aphasia occurs as paralysis

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in some regions of the brain, it is not about a child suffered from language disorder perhaps
daily habit of using language. can utter a word correctly, but he or she
cannot construct two words grammatically.
In essence, aphasia is not the only language Other children, for example, cannot enunciate
disorders. There are other disorders as follow: a word clearly but they are able to construct
dysphasia (language disorder of the children), the words grammatically to express what they
dyslexia, dysgraphia, and alexia (disorders of want.
reading, writing, figuring out and writing the
letters), dementia, Alzheimer, and Parkinson The adults use language encompass their full
(intellectual degradation in producing and linguistic competence. This process activates
recognizing the language), amnesia (memory the neurons in the brain, whereas speaking is
loss/memory and parts of speech), auditive about their capability to express the messages
perceptive and visual disorder (the disorder of or thoughts after language processing. The
sound and face recognition), agnosia (the results are verbal expressions produced by
inability to recognize goods and visual loss), speech organs. In fact, speech disorder occurs
apraxia (the loss of reflex), dysarthria (the because the speech organs (language and
loss of motoric for language use caused by speech) experience some disorders caused by
damage on the brain stem), myasthenia (the either internal or external factors (Travis,
disorders of muscle reaction to the stimulation 1971). Some cases on the children such as:
of motoric neurons), cerebral palsy (the speech delay, disorders on speech organs such
disorders of speaking caused by injuries in as pulmonal disorders, laryngeal, lingual,
motoric neurons). resonance, deformed upper lip, malocclusion
(teeth factors), multifactor disorders like
Many studies on language process or uncontrollable utterance in extremely fast
mechanism in the brain show the right manner, slower speaking, propulsive
hemisphere also has specific function in the speaking ( non-fluent), mutism (no speaking
communication. This function does not relate caused by psychological issue), psychogenic
to the aspects of linguistics, but it categorizes speech disorder, sassy speech style
as the social function since the damage in the (phonological syndrome), stammering
brain right hemisphere will cause some speech, latah (Southeast Asia-based abnormal
language disorders socially affecting the verbal behavior of startle disorder, ekolala: an
people in the social environment. The right abnormal verbal behavior to repeat other
hemisphere regulates some aspects of people’s words and korprolala: an abnormal
language, the damage or injury in this area verbal behavior to speak dirty, repetitive
will cause the following disorders: expressive verbal tendency).
and receptive lexico-semantic disorder,
expressive and receptive macro-structures 2.3 The role of neurolinguistics research
disorders, pragmatic disorder, prosody and its Neurolinguistic researches on the patience
components disorder, lexicon disorder, suffered from language and speech disorders
syntactic disorder, emotion and conversation have been done by Sastra et all (2014). These
disorder, proper conversation disorder, etc. researches focus on the aspects of
phonological and lexical disorders such as
Speech disorder is actually different from aphasia, dysphasia, cerebral palsy, dyslexia,
language disorder, but it is often confused speech delay, autism, dysarthria, mentally
with language disorder (Ingram, 2007). disabled, myasthenia, stammer, etc. Now the
Speech is all about speaking; it shows one’s research will focus on listening disorder on
voice or sound of the words. On the other the patience suffered from auditory
hand, language is about expressing and syndrome. Moreover, this research will also
accepting information in a specific way. develop a speech therapy model to treat those
Language is a means of communication. A

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disorders. The model has been tested to the 2014; Johan, 2014; Satria, 2015; Anggraini,
patience. 2015)

The further research on bioacoustics is needed The researches on neurolinguistics have been
to examine the improvement of patience’s done by Sastra et all since 2012. The results
communication proficiency. This research is of those studies can be a good reference and
about studying the change mechanism of the comparisons for therapists, neurologists,
sound wave from the human voice. Speech linguists and the people who have a family
analyzer-based spectrogram analysis can be member suffered from speech disorders. The
used for this purpose. This software has been results of these researches also function as the
used in the USA and Europe, but it is rare to knowledge or materials for another field of
be used in Indonesia. science such as information technology in
building a software of speech therapy. Europe
There are some researchers in Indonesia using and United States have done that
spectrogram software for neurolinguistic development. Furthermore, Sastra et all also
research as follow: Sastra (2013) on stroke develop a model on behavior therapy (MTP)
patience, some graduate students of to improve the communication proficiency of
Linguistic department of Andalas University the patience of speech and language disorders.
under Sastra supervision (Dewi, 2013; Putri,

Fig. 1. Roadmap of Neurolinguistics Research

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These neurolinguistic researches have been psycholinguistics was later coined as

conducted by Sastra et all in more than ten neurolinguistics. This term translates as
years. Every study contributes for linguistics the starting point when neurologists work
and neurolinguistics in theoretical aspects and together with linguists in studying brain
applied purposes for the society. The models and language.
of speech therapy have been developed and 2. Broca and Wernicke are two neurologists
tested in some medical centers for who study the localization of brain
rehabilitation, meaning, the linguists or function and its relationship with
neuro-linguists can work together with language disorder.
medical science and doctors. Furthermore, 3. There are some aspects to consider for
this research on bioacoustics is expected to formulating neurolinguistic rules as
examine the proficiency level of the patience follow: 1) Brain damage affects language
suffered from speech disorders. processing directly, 2) Damage on the left
hemisphere of the brain causes
One of the researches on speech disorders difficulties in processing the language, 3)
done by Sastra et all in 2016 entitled: Damage on the frontal region of the brain
Bioacoustics for the Patience of Mild causes disorder to linguistic stimulation
Listening Disorder. The subject of the for speaking and writing, whereas the
research is the people suffered from listening damage on the rear region of the brain
disorder. Sastra et all also conducted a causes disorders to linguistic stimulation
research on model development of language for listening and reading, 4) brain damage
and speech therapy funded by competence also causes disorders for understanding
grant scheme of Dikti Indonesia in 2012- the sensory organs of the flavor (agnosia)
2016. and the ability of language processing.
4. Language disorder is the difficulty for
III. CLOSING producing and understanding the
All human beings have a natural biological utterance fluently (aphasia). Being adults
tendency to acquire language for the use language is all about using their full
following reasons: (1) There are specific linguistic competence through activating
regions or centers in human brain functioning all functions of the neurons in the brain.
to regulate language, (2) All human babies On the other hand, speaking translates as
share the same way of developing and one’s capacity to express his or her
acquiring language, (3) All humans thought after undergoing a language
experience difficulties in developing and processing. The results of this process
acquiring language, (4) learning language is become the utterance produced by the
not possible for any other creatures, (5) All speech organs verbally.
languages on earth share the universal Sastra have conducted numerous
components. neurolinguistic researches for more than ten
1. There are many researches on the years. All those studies contribute for
relationship of the brain and language. linguistics, neurolinguistics, general health,
Therefore, the sub-discipline of neuro- and medical science in theoretical aspects
and applied purposes.

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