Brain and Language introduction Brain Disorders Aphasia

1. Blasco, Joy Marie D. Beed-English III
BRAIN AND
LANGUAGE

2. What is the nature of the brain?
What is the nature of the human language?
What is the relationship between the two?

3. THE HUMAN BRAIN
- The study of the biological and neural foundations of
language.
- Data based from atypical or impaired language.
Neurolinguistic
The Human Brain
-100 billion nerve cells (neurons)

4. THE HUMAN BRAIN
Cortex
- surface of the brain
- “gray matter”
- decision-making organ of the body
- receives messages from all the sensory
organs
- initiates all voluntary and involuntary actions
- storehouse of memories
- where our ‘grammar’ resides

5. THE HUMAN BRAIN
Corpus callosum
- joins the two hemispheres
- allows the two hemispheres to
communicate with each other
Contralateral Brain Function

7. The Localization of Language in the Brain
Franz Joseph Gall proposed the theory of
localization.
He proposed that language is located in the
frontal lobes. (Protuding eyes)
Localization
- different human cognitive
abilities and behaviors are
localized in specific parts of
the brain.

8. The Localization of Language in the Brain
Phrenology
- Formerly known as organology
- practice of determining personality traits, intellectual capacities,
and other matters by examining the “bumps” on the skull.
- discarded as a scientific theory
Johann Spurzheim
-introduced phrenology in America
-constructed elaborate maps and skull
models

9. Phrenology
Skull
Model

10. Aphasia
- Neurological term for any language disorder
that results from the brain damage caused by
disease or trauma
Paul Broca
Proposed that language is localized
in the left hemisphere of the brain. More
specifically front part of the left hemisphere
(Broca’s area).
We speak with the left hemisphere.

11. Carl Wernicke
Wernicke’s area
- left hemisphere temporal lobe
Lateralization
- term used to refer to the localization
of function to one hemisphere of the
brain.

13. Historical Description of Aphasia
Greek Hippocratic physicians reported that
loss of speech often occurred simultaneously with
paralysis of the right side of the body.
Psalm 137 states:
“If I forget thee, Oh Jerusalem, may my right
hand lose its cunning and my tongue cleave to
the roof of my mouth.”
Physicians of the day described other kinds of linguistic breakdown in
detail, such as a priest who, following brain damage, retained his ability to read
Latin but lost the ability to read German

14. The Linguistic Characterization of
Aphasic Syndromes
Most aphasics do not show total language loss
Broca’s aphasia (Agrammatic aphasia)
• Labored speech
• Word-finding difficulties
• Difficulty forming sentences with the rules of syntax.
• Aggramatic: lacks articles, prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs,
and other grammatical elements.
• Omit inflections (suffix –ed and the third person verb –s)
• Difficulty understanding complex sentences on which
comprehension depends on syntactic

15. Wernicke’s aphasia
• Fluent speech with good intonation
• Adhere to the rules of syntax
• Semantically incoherent
• Difficulty naming objects presented to them
• Difficulty choosing words in spontaneous speech
• Lexical errors (word substitutions)
• Produces jargon and nonsense words

17. “I felt worse because I can no longer keep in mind
from the mind of the minds to keep me from mind and
up to the ear which can be to find among ourselves.”
“The only thing that I can say is mader or
modder fish sudden fishing sewed into the accident to
miss in the purdies.”
“Me? Yes sir. I’m a male demaploze on my own. I
still know my tubaboys what for I have that’s gone hell
and some of them go up.”

18. Severe Wernicke’s aphasia (Jargon aphasia)
Modular organization of language in the brain.
Sometimes the substituted words are
similar to the intended words in their
sounds.
These errors resemble the speech
errors that anyone might make, but they
occur far more frequently in people with
aphasia.

19. Dyslexic
• Acquired dyslexic- normal readers before brain lesions
• Developmental dyslexic- difficulty learning to read
Stimulus Response 1 Response 2
Act Play Play
Applaud Laugh Cheers
Example Answer Sum
Heal Pain Medicine
South West East

20. Stimulus Response Stimulus Response
Witch Witch Which No!
Hour Time Our No!
Eye Eyes I No!
Hymn Bible him No!
Wood Wood Would No!

21. Kana- sound system
-each symbol corresponds to a syllable
Kanji- ideographic
Each symbol corresponds to a word
Not based on the sound
Japanese people with left-
hemisphere damage are impaired in
their ability to read kana, whereas
people with the right hemisphere
damage are impaired in their ability
to read kanji.
Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon (TOT)
-Severe anomia
-inability to find the words you wish to
speak.

22. It is important to note that the language
difficulties suffered by aphasics are not caused by
any general cognitive or intellectual impairment or
loss or motor or sensory controls of the nerves or
muscles of the speech organs or hearing
apparatus… Whatever loss they suffer has to do
only with the language faculty ( or specific parts of
it).