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Psycholinguistics

Neurolinguistics: Language and the brain

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The case of Phineas Gage He was a railroad construction

foreman in 1848. An iron rod passed through his

head in an explosives accident. He survived, and was back at

work within a few days. His language ability was

unaffected Major personality problems

ensued He probably did not join a

circus: Fromkin is wrong!

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Modularity Before Gage: the brain just a big mass? Now, evidence that different brain parts have

different functions Early evidence was from autopsies

– Now, of course, we can use MRI and other technologies

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Lateralization The brain is made up of two hemispheres

– Left and right Motor control

– Right hemisphere controls left side of body… Left hemisphere dominates in

– Language and cognitive processing Right hemisphere dominates in

– Non-verbal processing, eg spatial relations Handedness research (easy explanation here)

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Left hemisphere Broca’s area

– 1860s– Damage here

» Affects speech production Wernicke’s area (1870s)

– Injury here leads to comprehension difficulties Motor cortex

– Articulator controls close to Broca’s area Arcuate fasciculus

– Discovered by Wernicke– Nerve bundle linking Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas

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Dichotic listening The right ear

advantage– The sound played

through the right ear reaches Wernicke’s area more directly

– So, pa will more likely be the sound perceived

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Aphasia

Impairment of language function caused by a stroke or head injuries

Broca’s aphasia: often– Slow, distorted speech– Agrammatic

» Mostly lexical words» Function words wrongly used, or not used» “I eggs and eat and drink coffee breakfast”

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Wernicke’s aphasia Can include anomia (difficulty finding the

right word)– Related to the “tip of the tongue” phenomenon,

which we all sometimes experience Often difficult for the hearer to understand

– Even though the speech can be very fluent– “I can’t talk all of the things I do, and part of

the part I can go all right, but I can’t tell from the other people”

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Slips of the tongue TOT

– It seems words can be accessed in the mental lexicon by phonological, semantic or even spelling (at least in English!)

– You can think of a word with similar meaning, or similar sound… but not the right word!

Malapropisms (choosing the wrong word)– Good punctuation means not to be late. – He's a wolf in cheap clothing.

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Spoonerisms (Tips of the slongue)

You have tasted three whole worms You will leave Oxford by the town drain You have hissed all my mystery lectures Oscar Wilde (deliberate!)

– Work is the curse of the drinking classes All sorts of similar stuff

here (will not be in the exam!)

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Language acquisition: the critical period

Language cannot be effectively learned after brain lateralization is complete

– This may be around puberty Some (eg Fromkin) say that Genie’s story proves the CP

hypothesis. Yule make the opposite claim

– Genie had zero exposure to language until she was 13, but she did acquire some language

– She learnt words, but very limited syntax Dichotic experiments showed that she had no left-

hemisphere language facility– It is possible to use the right hemisphere for restricted language

purposes.