PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

LANGUAGE AND THE BRAIN

 Introdution
• In what way does the human brain differ from that of animals?
• Nativists:
• Humans are born with a genetically transmitted language faculty.
• They assume a structural difference between the human brain and that of animals.
• Cognitivists:
• The difference is only operational.
• We have the same brain structure, but the human brain operates differently.
• Where is language located in the brain?
• Chomsky:
• Language must be an independent faculty and not part of our general powers of
thought and reason (acquiring lge is guaranteed # intelligence or learning style).
• Is there a difference in the way the right side and left side of the brain
contribute to language? At what age does that difference become
established?
• The relationship between the two parts of the brain is flexible enough for language
to relocate itself on the right when necessary (in case the left hemisphere is
damaged/before 5).
• →The period of flexibility for learning a first language??? (CPH)
BRAIN GEOGRAPHY
1. Front Vs back
2. Left Vs right
3. Upper Vs Lower
 General functions of the brain
• 1. Front Vs Back: Each hemisphere is divided into four major regions, known as lobes.
• The frontal lobe at the front: planning and reasoning
• The temporal lobe running from front to back: hearing
• The occipital lobe at the back: vision
• The parietal lobe at the back: general sensing (feeling in the arms, legs, face, etc.)
• 2. Left Vs Right: The brain divides into two hemispheres, joined by a complex web of
nerve connections known as the corpus callosum.
• The left hemisphere controls movement and sensation on the right side of the body:
analytic processing and symbolisation,
• The right hemisphere is linked to the left side: perceptual and spatial representation.
• 3. Upper Vs Lower:
• The upper surface of the brain consists of 'grey matter [the cortex (or cortical area)]:
making connections with stored information, analysing input and controlling muscular
movements.
• The sub-cortex of 'white matter', which is mainly nerve cell fibres, is responsible for
reflex actions, controlling functions such as breathing and heart beats.
• The cerebellum at the base of the brain has a delicate role in coordinating a range of
muscular movements which have become highly automatic.
 LOCALISING LANGUAGE IN THE BRAIN
• 2 views of the place of language in the
brain:
• a. language is restricted to a single
location or a limited number of
locations
• b. language is widely distributed
throughout the brain.
 LOCALISING LANGUAGE IN THE BRAIN
• Evidence from aphasia:
• Evidence from individuals who had suffered damage to a
particular part of the brain as result of an accident, a stroke or
surgery.
• Paul Broca (French 1863): the lower part of the left frontal
lobe.
• Carl Wernicke (German 1874): the posterior part of the
temporal lobe.
• Damage to either will often (but not always) lead to a condition
known as aphasia, in which patients lose some of their powers
of speech.
• The type of language impairment varies considerably
according to which of the two areas is damaged.
 Different symptoms are associated with
Broca's and with Wernicke's aphasia
Broca's aphasia Wernicke's aphasia
Effortful speech; much pausing Effortless speech - fluent, rapid
Almost no syntax Syntactically well-structured,
complex
Few function words or affixes Function words, affixes
Mainly concrete nouns Many general nouns (e.g. thing,
person) and verbs (e.g. do, go)
Comprehension often good; but Comprehension often severely
may use positional and impaired
semantic cues rather than fully
understanding meaning
Problems in relying heavily on evidence based
upon brain damage.
1. Language processing by brain-damaged patients
may not provide a good model of language
processing by normal users.
2. Many sufferers manifest some but not all of the
symptoms listed above.
3. There are patients who have suffered damage to
the areas identified by Broca and Wernicke,
without showing signs of language impairment.
→This suggests that the location of these sensitive
areas may vary somewhat from one individual to
another.
LATERALISATION IN THE
BRAIN
 Lateralisation and language
• What we have seen so far (the left hemisphere = analytic processing
and symbolisation + the effects noted by Broca and Wernicke
involved damage to the left side of the brain) suggests an important
role for the left hemisphere in language processing.
• A link between the left hemisphere and language has since
been confirmed by:
• Wada tests: an injection temporarily suspends the operations associated
with either the left or the right hemisphere. In most patients, language is
suppressed when the left hemisphere is disabled.
• Dichotic listening: where different messages are fed simultaneously into
two ears. The message that dominates is usually found to be the one in the
right ear (- i.e. the one that connects contralaterally with the left
hemisphere).
• Commissurotomy: an operation in which the corpus callosum was severed
in severe cases of epilepsy, disconnecting the two hemispheres. Patients
who underwent this operation could name objects in their right field of
but not those in their left field of vision.
 Epilepsy
Split-brain effects
Certain aspects of lateralization have been
dramatically confirmed by the work of Sperry
(1982), who separated the two hemispheres of
the brain by severing the connecting tissue, the
corpus callosum, of a number of patients.
Such a drastic operation was believed
necessary to save the patients, who were
suffering from extreme cases of epilepsy.
Lateralisation and brain damage
• The language of some people who have suffered
brain damage at a very early age appears to
have re-lateralised itself to the undamaged
right hemisphere.
• It might be that in early life there is a
period of flexibility in the brain, with neural
connections yet to be fully established and
language not yet lateralised.
• If the left part of the brain is unavailable due
to an accident or surgery, then language might
establish itself in the right hemisphere instead.
 The critical period hypothesis
• The critical period hypothesis has it that there is a time during our early lives when
we have maximum receptivity to language.
• If a child is not exposed to language during that period, it will only achieve a
limited degree of competence.
• Lenneberg (1967) suggested a link between this theory and lateralisation.
• The critical period might coincide with the time when the child's brain is flexible and
before language has become fully distributed between the hemispheres.
• The problem is that there is no agreement as to how long the critical period lasts
and when the plasticity of the brain comes to an end (5, 9, Adolescence).
• The critical period theory has led to interest in the rare cases of children who
have been deprived of language early in life.
• These are wolf (or feral) children such as Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron, who
appears to have grown up in a forest after being abandoned; and attic children who
have been confined by cruel or mentally incapable parents.
• a. Language seems more vulnerable than other cognitive faculties.
• b. Speech appears to be more retarded than comprehension. It develops more
slowly after discovery.
• c. Interpersonal contact makes an important contribution to the speed and
success of late language development.
 Extended CPH
• The concept of a Critical Period has been extended to second language
learning. The hypothesis is:
• - that the plasticity of the brain permits younger learners to
acquire a second language much more successfully than adult ones;
• - that the universal grammar which permits us to acquire our
first language is no longer available after a certain age.
• - that a child who starts to acquire a language before the age of about
eight is likely to end up with a native-like accent and fluency.
• But in areas other than pronunciation (e.g. grammar), adolescents
and adults are often more successful in the early stages.
• There are implications here for studies of first language acquisition:
• The suggestion has been made that there may not be one critical
period but a whole set of them, with different features of language
competence being lateralised at different stages.
 Homework
Write a paragraph on one of the following topics:
1. To what extent is it true that language is localized
in two specific areas of the left hemisphere of the
brain?

2. It has been suggested that women use the right

hemisphere of their brain to a greater degree than
men. If this is true, what might it tell us about their
use of language?
Thank you