1. Neurolinguistics: Language and the brain
Psycholinguistics
Neurolinguistics: Language and the brain

2. 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!

3. 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

4. Lateralization The brain is made up of two hemispheres Motor control
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)

5. Left hemisphere Broca’s area Wernicke’s area (1870s) Motor cortex
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

6. 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

7. 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”

8. 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”

9. Slips of the tongue TOT Malapropisms (choosing the wrong word)
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.

10. 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!)

11. 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.