Introduction to Linguistic

Language and The Brain

Groups :

1. Ahmad Murtaqi Jauhari (105110103111010)2. Dian Aprilyani (105110101111096)

3. Dilah Ovy Safitri (105110101111088)4. Brilliant Devanty (105110113111012)5. Tiara Puspa Megawati (105110101111095)

Neurolinguistic

Neurolinguistics studies the relation of language

and communication to different aspects of brainfunction, i.e. it tries to explore how the brainunderstands and produces language andcommunication. This involves attempting to combine theory

fromneurology/neurophysiology (how the brain isstructured and how it functions) with linguistictheory (how language is structured and how itfunctions).

Language Areas in The Brain BROCA’S AREA WERNICKE’S

AREA MOTOR

CORTEX ARCUATE

FASCICULUS

Broca’s Area

Broca’s area is used to produce production of speech. It was possible to localize psychologicalfunctions to brain convolutions. Linguistic symptoms were caused by lesions in the left hemisphere and that language, thus, was lateralized, which was totally unexpected.And also Broca’s area is said to have a “motor representation” of speech.

Wernicke’s Area

Wernicke’s area is the posterior part of the first or superior temporal gyrus and adjacent areas (parts of the angular gyrus, the supramarginal gyrus and the second temporal gyrus are included) first temporal convolution.

Language comprehension disturbed Important parts of Wernicke’s theory are:

1. The identification of symptom complexes.2. The idea about flow of information (a sort of

high level “reflex arc”).3. The idea of representation. Wernicke’s area is

said to have an “auditory sound representation” of speech.

Motor CortexMotor cortex is an area that generally controls movement of the muscles (for moving hands, feet, arms, etc.). Close to Broca’s area is the part of the motor cortex that controls the articulatory muscles of the face, jaw, tongue and larynx. Evidence that this area is involved in the physical articulation of speech.

Arcuate Fasciculus

A white matter tract that connects Broca’s Area and Wernicke’s Area through the Temporal, Parietal and Frontal Lobes. Allows for coordinated, comprehensible speech.

The localization view

The localization view is having identified these four components, it is tempting to conclude that specificaspects of language ability can be accorded specific locations in the brain. And it has been used to suggest that the brain activity involved in hearing a word, understanding it, then saying it, would follow a definite pattern. This is certainly an oversimplified version of what may actually take place, but it is consistent with much of what we understand about simple language processing in the brain.

Tongue tips and slips The tip of the tongue phenomenonIt is in which we feel that some word is just eluding us, that we know the word. It also showing speakers generally have an accurate phonological outline of the word, can get the initial sound correct and mostly know the number of syllables in the word. Slips of the tongueSlips of the tongue are sometimes called spoonerisms after William Spooner, an Anglican clergyman at Oxford University, who was renowned for his tongue slips. Slips of the earSlips of the ear provide some clues to how the brain tries tomake sense of the auditory signal it receives.

What is Aphasia???

Aphasia is one kind of language disorder that results from damage to the parts of the brain that contain language.

Aphasia causes problems in the ability to perceive, process, or produce language.

Aphasia occurs in various forms and degrees, depending upon the situation, extent, and severity of the cerebral lesions which is responsible.

Causes of Aphasia

Aphasia is caused by damage to one or more of the language areas of the brain.

The cause of the brain injury is a stroke

Other causes of brain injury are severe blows to the head, brain tumors, brain infections, and other conditions that affect the brain.

Damage to the left side of the brain causes aphasia for most right-handers and about half of left-handers.

Cont…

Aphasia is rare in childhood and increases in frequency with increasing age.

Cerebral hemorrhage causes aphasia less often.

Intracranial tumour is a common cause of aphasia during the first half of adult life, when cerebral vascular lesions are rare.

Abscess of the left temporal lobe may also cause aphasia, as may traumatic lesions involving the ‘speech areas’ (Lauria 1970).

Cont..

Neurosyphilis may cause aphasia, by causing either cerebral infarction or general paresis.

In brain tumors, the syndromes of aphasia seem to feature more semantic and syntactic errors (Haas et al., 1982),

The Classification of Aphasia

Modified from Geschwind (1970), the principal forms of aphasia and related disorders can be

classified as follows:

Broca’s Aphasia Expressive or motor aphasia, anterior

aphasia, or non-fluent aphasia)

This is caused by the damage to Broca’s area, located at the base of the motor cortex.

Speak haltingly and have a hard time forming complete words when they attempt to produce language.

Understand the speech of others fairly well.

May have some difficulty matching the correct semantic interpretation to the syntactic order of the sentence

Reading aloud produces the same defective utterances as spontaneous speech. Singing, however, may be surprisingly unaffected both in relation to the words and the melody (Yamodori, Osumi, Masuhara, and Okubo 1977).

Cont…

If writing to be tested, this must be attempted with the unaffected hand (usually the left).

This handwriting is usually defective and there is poverty and lack of precision of written language, though copying is relatively impaired.

Pure word-dumbness or subcortical motor aphasia: similar impairment of spoken speech but writing is unimpaired

Cont…

Wernicke’s Aphasia

Sensory or receptive or fluent aphasia

This is caused by the damage of Wernicke’s area, located near the back section of the auditory cortex.

It is very difficult for people with Wernicke’s aphasia to understand the speech of others

May speak in long sentences that have no meaning, add unnecessary words, and even create made-up words.

Often misinterpret what other say and respond in an unexpected way.

Has a tendency to produce semantically incoherent speech.

Speak in circumlocutions, or expressions that people use when they are unable to name the word they want.

The syntactic order of words is also altered.

Often cannot follow simple instructions.

Cont…

Paraphasias (incorrect word usage). Literal (the use of incorrect vowels or

consonants within a word). Verbal (the use of incorrect words). Meaningless jargon (jargon aphasia). Repetition of words offered by the

examiner is impaired. Naming objects and handwriting is

usually normal but the content of written and spoken spontaneous language is abnormal.

Cont…

Copying is relatively unaffected. The appreciation of musical sounds

may be lost (amusia) The comprehension of written or

printed language is often impaired (alexia) (Heilman, Rothi, Campanella, and Wolfson 1970).

Word-retrieval as well as word comprehension is usually severely affected (Coughlan and Warrington 1978).

Cont…

Pure or subcortical word-deafness (auditory aphasia) is a rare and fractional form of Wernicke’s aphasia.

The patient distinguishes words from other sounds but cannot understand them so that his own language.

Cannot repeat words or write dictation but spontaneous speech, writing, and reading are unimpaired.

Cont…

In word-blindness the subject cannot recognize words or letters

In ‘pure’ word-blindness, the defect involves only literal and verbal symbols, but sometimes the significance of numbers and even colors cannot be appreciated either.

Cont…

Conduction Aphasia

Central aphasia or Goldstein, syntactical aphasia

This results from damage to the arcuate fasciculus which results in severing the connection between the Broca’s and Wirnicke’s areas.

Understand speech and correctly interpret words from the mental lexicon but will not be able to transmit information to Broca’s area so that words can be articulated.

Global or Total Aphasia

This results from damage to extensive portions of the language areas of the brain.

Individuals with global aphasia have severe communication difficulties and may be extremely limited in their ability to speak or comprehend language.

The Global Aphasics have problems with both using words and understanding.

The posterior association aphasias

Lesions in or near the angular gyrus of the dominant hemisphere may interrupt connections between Wernicke’s area and most other areas of the brain.

A large lesion may produce ‘the syndrome of the isolated speech area’ (Geschwind, Quadfasel, Segarra 1968) in which speech is fluent but paraphasic.

Object naming, spontaneous writing and comprehension of both oral and written language are impaired.

Repetition of words spoken by the examiner is normal and the patient may show parrot-like repetition of a word or phrase (‘echolalia’).

Cont…

If the lesion is less extensive, then the speech may be fluent with only occasional paraphasia.

Comprehension of written and spoken language as well as repetition are all normal, though written speech may be impaired.

Difficulty in naming objects and people (anomia, nominal, or amnestic aphasia).

Cont…

One subvariety of this condition, also resulting from a parieto-occipital lesion, is tactile aphasia (Beauvois, Sailant, Meininger, and Lhermitte 1978).

Misnames objects presented tactually in either hand but recognizes them at once when presented visually or auditorily.

Cont…

Related disorders of language

Agraphia: inability to produce written language.

Alexia: inability to understand written or printed speech.

Alexia with agraphia, or visual asymbolia or cortical word-blindness: total inability both to read and write and copy.

Word-form or spelling dyslexia: reading of whole words is impossible but the subject can read letter by letter.

Aphasia may be mild or severe depends on the amount and location of the damage to the brain.

Mild aphasia: the person may be able to converse yet have trouble finding the right word or understanding complex conversations.

Severe aphasia limits the person's ability to communicate. The person may say little and may not participate in or understand any conversation.

Cont…

Pure alexia without agraphia, or pure subcortical word-blindness or visual aphasia: the patient cannot recognize words, letters, or colors but can visualize colors. He cannot copy but can write or speak spontaneously and normally.

Acalculia: a defect in the ability to use mathematical symbols.

Amusia: a defect of musical expression or appreciation and, like aphasia, can be either expressive or receptive.

Cont…

Symptoms of Aphasia

Broca’s Aphasia:

Speaks only in single words Speak in short, fragmented phrases Omits smaller words like “the”, “of”,

and “and” Puts words in wrong order Switches sounds and/or words Makes up words (e.g., jargon) Strings together nonsense words and

real words fluently but makes no sense.

Wernicke’s Aphasia

Requires extra time to understand spoken message

Finds if very hard to follow fast

Misinterprets subtitles of language-takes the literal meaning of figurative language

Is frustrating for the person with aphasia and for listener-can lead to communication breakdown.

Conduction Aphasia

Fluent but meaningless speech but the patient shows signs of being able to comprehend the speech of others.

Will be able to understand utterances but will not be able to repeat them.

Treatments of Aphasia

In some cases the aphasia patients can recover without treatment.

Most cases, language recovery is not as quickly or as complete.

Aphasia therapy purposes to improve a person’s ability to communicate by helping him or her to use remaining language abilities as much as possible

Another treatment for aphasia patients is often use melodic intonation therapy.

Medical Care

Psychological support is important.

Special techniques exist to treat patients with articulatory problems, grammatism, lack of syntax, and lack of intonation ability.

experts agree on the importance of speech therapy in aphasia. 

Studies have shown that intensive speech therapy may be more beneficial than a more extended course of sporadic therapy.

The combination of medical therapy and speech therapy is of greater benefit than that of speech therapy alone.

New technologies are being applied to aphasia.

A few early trials indicate benefit from

transcranial magnetic stimulation in patients with aphasia.

Cont…

Dichotic Listening Dichotic listening is an experimental technique

that has demonstrated a left hemisphere dominance for syllable and word processing.

This technique uses the generally established fact that anything experienced on the right-hand side of the body is processed in the left hemisphere, and anything on the left side is processed in the right hemisphere.

For example, through one earphone comes the syllable ga or the word dog, and through the other earphone at exactly the same time comes da or cat. When asked to say what was heard, the subject more often correctly identifies the sound that came via the right ear. This is known as the right ear advantage for linguistic sounds.

The critical period The critical period hypothesis assumes

that language is biologically based and states that the ability to learn a native language develops within a fixed period, from birth to middle childhood.

During childhood, there is a period when the human brain is most ready to receive input and learn a particular language.

For human babies, the brain is very flexible, and the left hemisphere is not dominant. By the Critical Age, the left hemisphere is dominant and Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area become less adaptable to new language stimuli.

Genie

Genie was discovered in 1970 at the age of thirteen and seven months in a Los Angeles suburb.

She was confined up until that point by her controlling father, who abused her regularly.

Because she had not acquired language up until that point, linguists used her to test the critical period theory.

When Genie was Found When Genie was first found, they

couldn’t tell at first whether or not she had already acquired language and simply wasn’t using it or if she indeed had not acquired language.

Because she did not respond to simple commands but did respond to words that were clearly out of the context of their environment, it was determined that Genie truly had not yet acquired language.

First Words

Genie’s first basic ‘words’ were monosyllabic consonant-vowel sequences.

After five months, she began to use single words spontaneously.

Her early vocabulary was different from the first words of regular children which are typically nouns, plus particles like up and down.

How she was taught to Speak The tests that were created to show

Genie’s progress in learning showed that Genie was acquiring language, but not through imitation or prescribed rules.

Genie learned plurals by learning to match the test pictures with a string of the following sort: 1+N+S, 2+N+S, etc. So if Curtiss, one of the members of the team who worked with her, said “three dishes,” Genie would construct the string 3 dish S. In five lessons, Genie had mastered the plural concept.

Initial Observations about Genie

When she was first discovered, most of the sounds that came out of her mouth were voiceless.

Normal people learn very early in life how to speak and breathe at the same time. Genie, however, never learned how to do so.

The Differences that Kept her Separate

There are a few major differences between her and regular children who acquire language as babies:› Her vocabulary was different and

much larger than that of children at the same stage of syntactic development.

› The rate of her syntactic acquisition was much slower than normal.

Results Genie eventually learned to produce

immature, pidgin like sentences such as:› Mike Paint.› Applesauce buy store.› I like elephant eat peanut. › Neal come happy; Neal not come sad.

Some hypothesize that the reason why people like Genie never learn to speak successfully is because they have emotional scars that interfere somehow with their ability to learn.

Thank you……