TOPIC 8 The Brain & Language Mastery

1. TOPIC 8The Brain & Language Mastery

2. The biological foundations of language • Our linguistic ability does not depend primarily on the structure of our vocal cords, for other mammals also have vocal cords. • Human linguistic ability largely depends  on the structure and dynamics of the human brain. • Human beings are the only organisms in which one particular part of the left half of the brain is larger than the corresponding part of the right half.

4. The Human Brain • The most important part of the brain is the outside surface of the brain, called the cerebral cortex. • The brain is divided into two roughly symmetrical halves, called hemispheres. • Right hemisphere controls voluntary movements of, and responds to signals from the left side of the body • controls visual and spatial skills as well as the perception of nonlinguistic sounds and musical melodies • Left hemisphere controls voluntary movements of, and responds to signals from the right side of the body. • controls language. • The localization of cognitive and perceptual functions in a particular hemisphere of the brain is called lateralization.

5. WHAT IS BRAIN LATERALIZATION? • The term brain lateralization refers to • the two halves of the human brain are not exactly alike. • The human brain is a paired organ • composed of two halves (called cerebral hemispheres). • Each hemisphere has its own functional specializations.

6. What is Linguistic lateralization? • Linguistic lateralization is the brain’s neurological specialization for language. • Left hemispheric  dominance for language • Dichotic listening research • The language centers • Language perception, comprehension and production • The critical period for language acquisition

7. Left/Right Brain hemisphere (theory of Roger Sperry) Otak Kiri • Logik dan analisis • Urutan • Linear • Rasional • Teliti • Pembelajaran hafalan (bahasa) • Matematik Otak Kanan • Kreatif • Random • Intuitif • Holistik • Pantas • Visual • Muzik

8. Right hemisphere Brain lateralization for major mental functions under the control of each hemisphere Left hemisphere Language and speech Analytic reasoning Temporal ordering Reading and writing Calculation Associative thought perception of nonlinguistic sound holistic reasoning visual and spatial skills recognition of patterns recognition of musical melodies

9. The language centers • Three areas of the left hemisphere are vital to language, namely, Broca’s area, Wernicke’s area and the angular gyrus.

13. Broca’s area • The area in the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that controls the production of speech sounds • Paul Broca • Among the first scientists to demonstrate the existence of localized functions in the cerebral cortex; concluded that the site of damage was the part of the brain responsible for speech production • Broca’s aphasia • An impairment in the physical ability to produce speech sounds, or, in extreme cases, an inability to speak at all • Aphasia • A loss or impairment of the ability to understand or communicate through the written or spoken word, that results from damage to the brain

14. Wernicke’s area • The language area in the temporal lobe involved in comprehension of the spoken word and in formulation of coherent speech and written language • Wernicke’s aphasia • Aphasia that results from damage to Wernicke’s area and in which the person’s spoken language is fluent, but the content is either vague or incomprehensible to the listener • Another kind of aphasia is auditory aphasia • Word deafness • Temporal association areas • House memories and are involved in the interpretation of auditory stimuli • There is a special association area where familiar melodies are stored

16. Wernicke–Geschwind model Carl Wernicke created an early neurological model of language, that later was revived by Norman Geschwind - The model is known as the WERNICKE–GESCHWIND MODEL. According to Wernicke, people who suffer from brain damage to a particular part of the brain (i.e. temporal lobe – Wernicke’s area) may experience receptive aphasia, i.e. cannot understand speech, but still can speak fluently (their speech is meaningless). Damage to Broca’s area (frontal cortex)  cause individual to suffer from aphasia, i.e. cannot speak (partial/total loss of speech ability) but still understand what others are saying.

17. Wernicke–Geschwind Model For listening to and understanding spoken words, the sounds of the words are sent through the auditory pathways to area 41 (the primary auditory cortex)  From here they continue to wernicke’s,where the meaning of the words is extracted. In order to speak, the meanings of words are sent from Wernicke’s area via the arcuate fasciculus to Broca’s area. Broca’s area holds a representation for articulating words Instructions for speech are sent from Broca’s area to the facial area of the motor cortex and from there instructions are sent to facial motor neurons in the brainstem, which relay movement orders to facial muscles.

18. What is Language? • Language can be defined in many ways. • Language is…… • “a set of (finite and infinate) sentences. Each is finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements” (chomsky, 1957) • “a mean of communication, generally through spoken sounds that express specific meanings, and are arranged according to rules”. (Papalia & Olds, 1985) • “an organized system of symbols with meanings that are shared, and are used to communicate”. (Bourne & Mamcy Felipe Russo, 1998)

19. What is Language? • A law of grammar and semantic that makes conversation more meaningful , i.e. language is a combination of words to communicate  a symbolic code used in communication. • A collection of symbols with rules and collectively they can create an infinite variety of messages i.e. a system of symbols and rules that enable us to communicate. • The systematic, meaningful arrangement of symbols  according to rules to create a message that has a common meaning for users and recipients. • Covers ways of communication  where thoughts and emotions are being expressed  in order to convey message/meaning to others

20. 6 Properties of language Communicative – enable people to communicate with each other. Arbitrarily symbolic - Language create an arbitrary relationship between a symbol and its reference, such as things, ideas, process, relationship & description. Regularly structured - Language has a structure, where particular patterns of sounds and letters form meaningful words. Structured at multiple levels – Language structure can be analyzed at more than one level (e.g. in sound, meaning units, words, phrases etc) Generative, Productive – Limitless ability to produce language creatively Dynamic – Language constantly evolves

21. Language Component • Phonology • sound system of language • Semantics • the meaning conveyed by words and sentences • Syntax • The set of grammatical rules indicating how words may be combined to make sentences • Pragmatics • The priciple that determine how language are used pragmatically - according to situations & modified to fit the context (e.g: we speak in a simpler manner to a child than to an adult)

22. Speech Production and Comprehension: Brain Mechanisms • Transcortical sensory aphasia • A speech disorder in which a person has difficulty comprehending speech and producing meaningful spontaneous speech but can repeat speech; caused by damage to the region of the brain posterior to Wernicke’s area. • Autotopagnosia • Inability to name body parts or to identify body parts that another person names. • Arcuate fasciculus • A bundle of axons that connects Wernicke’s area with Broca’s area; damage to these axons causes conduction aphasia. • Conduction aphasia • An aphasia characterized by the inability to repeat words that are heard but the ability to speak normally and comprehend the speech of others.

25. Language Competence • Psycholinguists (scientists who study language processing) focus on three aspects of language competence: • Acquisition - Language acquisition is the language learning, in babyhood or later • Comprehension- Language comprehension is the ability to extract intended meanings from language. • Production - Language production is the ability to speak or write fluently.

26. Language Acquisition • Two types of Language acquisition: • First language acquisition • Infants’ acquisition of their native language • Second language acquisition • Additional languages learned (acquired) by children & adult.

27. Language Acquisition:First language acquisition • How do we learn our native language? What are the stages this process follows? • How do failures in this process occur? • When you’re tired--not just people with pathologies

28. Language Acquisition:Language Development • Phonological development • —from babbling to full sentences • Semantic development • We learn what things mean (semantics) and acquire concepts • Syntactic development and syntactic categories • We learn the syntax of our language (what are syntactic categories)

29. Stages of Language Acquisition • Receptive language (language comprehension) • Productive language (language expression or speaking) • Cooing (6-8 mths) – mostly vowels sound (aaaa, uuuuu, oooo….) • Babbling (9-18 mths) – comprising of consonant and vowel sounds (BA, MA…) • One-word utterance - (18-24 mths) – limited in both vowels & consonant – single word (BALL, DAD, HIT….) • Two-word utterance and telegraphic speech (24-30 mths) - simple sentence (BAD DOG…). • Basic adult sentence structure (above 30 mths) – building sentence – presence of grammatical and functional structure, and continuing vocabulary acquisition.

30. Language AcquisitionSecond Language Acquisition • Factors that affect our chances of learning L2: • Individual differences • working memory span • Age of acquisition effects • time at which begin to learn L2 • Environment of learningc • classroom versus immersion • Style of instruction– arnab is “rabbit” or • associations between translations or directly to concepts

31. Learning a Second Language • Most people around the world speak two or more languages • Bilingualism is associated with • better metalinguistic skills • The capacity to think about language • Decreased efficiency in memory tasks involving words • Most bilinguals develop compensatory strategies for word memory tasks but respond more slowly • No age limit on ability to learn a new language • Early starters have increased proficiency and accent • Easier to learn second language the better you know your native language, spelling rules, grammar structure, and vocabulary

32. Learning a Second Language • Growing up in a bilingual home provides distinct advantages in adolescence and adulthood. • Spanish and English are the languages spoken by the majority of bilinguals in the United States

33. Language Comprehension • Language comprehension is the ability to extract intended meanings from language. • As a rule, comprehension develops faster than production. • A three year old can understand more than the same child can speak. • A non-native speaker of English can understand more than he or she can say. • A student new to a discipline can understand the professional jargon before being able to produce it.

34. Language comprehension • Sometimes language comprehension becomes difficult and ambiguous  because some combination of words give a different meaning, i.e. the expressions can often be interpreted more than one way. • Words that look alike but sound different are called homographs. Cth: • the word "affect" which can be pronounced: • a-FECT (meaning cause) or • AFF-ect (meaning emotion) • A psychologist who reads, "The patient had a flat affect" will know to pronounce the word AFF-ect and will interpret this sentence as meaning "The patient showed little emotion."

35. Language comprehension Usually there is a context that helps us determine the intended meaning of a word. The surrounding words disambiguate (remove ambiguity from) a homonym. A psychologist who reads, "The patient had a flat affect" will know to pronounce the word AFF-ect and will interpret this sentence as meaning "The patient showed little emotion."

36. Language Production • Language production is the ability to speak or write fluently. • Language production refers to the process involved in creating and expressing meaning through language. • According to Levelt (1989), language production contains four successive stages: • Conceptualization • Formulation • Articulation • Self-monitoring (Scovel 1998:27 )

37. Language production

38. First stage: Conceptualization • Psycholinguists generally agree that some form of mentalese exists--- a representation system which is different from language. • The notion is that thoughts take form in mentalese and are then translated into linguistic form, but there is little agreement as to the properties of this prelinguistic mental representation.

39. Second Stage: Formulation • Formulation is much easier to describe than conceptualization because analysis on eventual output of the process, such as speech errors, and the choice of words or sentence structures can be a great help for understanding speech production.

40. Third stage: Articulation • Articulation of speech sounds • A very important stage of production. • Once we have organized our thoughts into a linguistic plan, this information must be sent from the brain to the muscles in the speech system so that they can then execute the required movements and produce the desired sounds. • We depend on vocal organs to produce speech sounds so as to express ourselves. • In the production of speech sounds, the lungs, larynx and lips may work at the same time and thus form co-articulation.

41. Forth stage: Self-regulation • Self-regulation is the last stage o f speech production. • To err is human. No matter who he is, he would make mistakes in conversation or in writing. • So each person would do some self-correction over and over again while conversing.

42. Speech Errors • Speech errors are made by speakers unintentionally. • They are very common and occur in everyday speaking. • In formulation speech, we are often influenced by the sound system of language. For example, big and fat--- pig fat; fill the pool---fool the pill. • The scientific study of speech errors, commonly called slips of the tongue or tongue-slips, can provide useful clues to the processes of language production: they can tell us where a speaker stops to think. • According to Freud’s  errors occur because we have more than a single plan for production and that one such plan competes with and dominates the other.

43. Examples of the eight types of errors __________________________________________________________ Type Example __________________________________________________________ • Shift That’s so she’ll be ready incase she dicide to hits it. (decides to hit it). (2) Exchange Fancy getting your model resnosed. (getting your nose remodeled). (3) Anticipation Bake my bike. (take my bike). (4) Perseveration He pulled a pantrum. (tantrum). (5) Addition I didn’t explain this clarefully enough.(carefully enough). (6) Deletion I’ll just get up and mutter intelligibly. (unintelligibly). (7) Substitution At low speeds it’s too light. (heavy). (8) Blend That child is looking to be spaddled. (spanked\paddled). ______________________________________________________

44. Explainations of errors (1) Shifts = one speech segment disappears from its appropriate place and appears somewhere else. (2) Exchanges = are double shifts, in which two linguistic units exchange places. (3) Anticipations =occur when a later segment takes the place of an earlier one. They are different from shifts in that the segment that intrudes on another also remains in its correct place and thus is used twice. (4) Perseverations = appear when a earlier segment replaces a later item. (5) Additions = add linguistic material. (6) Deletions = leave something out. (7) Substitutions = occur when one segment is replaced by an intruder. These are different from the previously described slips in that the source of the intrusion may not be in the sentence. (8) Blends = occur when more than one word is being considered and the two intended items “fuse” or blend into a single item.

45. Deep understanding of the production process • Errors are committed only by non-native speakers, but not by native speakers. • Native speakers often make “mistakes” and correct themselves immediately, which gives us deep understanding of the production process. • Firstly, the production is not one-way transmission of messages. Speakers or writers self-regulate constantly so as to ensure each previous stage is accurate. • Secondly, speakers or writers are sensitive to mistakes they make. So at the sight of mistakes they are capable of readjusting messages at the stages of conceptualization, formulation, or articulation quickly. • Lastly, the fact that native speakers can monitor and correct mistakes immediately in production proves Chomsky’s idea that there are some differences between performance and competence. • Competence monitors performance to ensure the production is accurate.

46. Native speakers often use different ways to edit their linguistic peformance • Firstly, at the very beginning or the conceptualization stage of the speech, when they find their speech inappropriate  they would start the utterance all over again. • Secondly, at the formulation stage or articulation stage, speakers would not like to start afresh  but renew the sentence in part from the point.

47. Speech Production and Comprehension: Brain Mechanisms • Memory of words: anomic aphasia • Anomic aphasia • Aphasia characterized by difficulty in finding words. The speech of patients with this aphasia is fluent and grammatical, and their comprehension is excellent. • Circumlocution • A strategy by which people with anomic aphasia find alternative ways to say something when they are unable to think of the most appropriate word.

48. Speech Production and Comprehension: Brain Mechanisms • Prosody: rhythm, tone, and emphasis in speech • Prosody • The use of changes in intonation and emphasis to convey meaning in speech besides that specified by the particular words; an important means of communication of emotion.

49. Disorders of Reading and Writing • Relation to aphasia • Pure alexia • Loss of the ability to read without the loss of the ability to write; produced by brain damage. • Also known as pure word blindness or alexia without agraphia.