NONG LAM UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

HOW DO OUR BRAINS

DEAL WITH LANGUAGE ?
GROUP 3
1. Trn Th Ngc Dung
2. T Th Nh Ho
3. H Thy Vn Hy
4. Nguyn Thanh Thy
5. L Thy Vi

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Subject: Introduction to Linguistics

Guiding teacher: M.A Le Minh Ha

1
Introduction to
the brain

OUTLINE
3
2
Aphasia

The evolution
of language

4
The autonomy
of language

I. Introduction
to the brain

Which part of
the brain deals
with language?

How do our
brains deal with
language ?

a. The Left Brain

b. Temporal Lope
c. Brocas Area & Wernickes area

I. Introduction to the brain

Cerebral hemisphere: the 2 parts of the brain, the left hemisphere controlling the
movements of the right side of the body, the right hemisphere those of left side.

I.1. Which part of the brain deals with language ?

I.1.a. The Left Brain
The left-side of the brain is
considered to be adept at tasks
that involve logic, language,
and analytical thinking. The
left-brain is described as
being better at:
-Cerebral hemisphere: Bn cu no
- Adept: Lo luyn
- Hemisphere: Bn cu
- Analytical thinking: T duy phn tch

I. Introduction to the brain

I.1. Which part of the brain deals with language ?
I.1.b. Temporal Lobe
- Primary motor cortex : Vng vn ng
- Primary somatosensory cortex : Vng
cm gic.
- Primary visual contex : Vng th gic.
- Wernickes area : Vng cm nhn li ni.
- Brocas area : Vng c nng pht m.
- Primary auditory area: Vng thnh gic.
- Temporal lobe: Thy thi dng.

I. Introduction to the brain

I.1. Which part of the brain deals with language ?
I.1.c. Brocas Area: A front part of the left hemisphere of the brain.
Wernickes area:
Wernickes area:
Broca s Area:
Associated with motor
planning and speech
production. Brocas
area is believed to
responsible for lexical
and phonological
processing

- Lexical: T vng
- Phonological: Ngn ng
hc.

Considered the area of

the brain critical for
language
comprehension.
Wernickes area is
responsible for
processing speech
sounds.

I. Introduction to the brain

I.2. How do our brains deal with language ?

- The language learning model is based on cognitive neuroscience, may also like
information processing model of learning.
- According to the information processing model of learning the language, understand
language occurs as follows:
Brain
encodes the
stimuli from the
environment

The brain recognized

statistical the information
entered and consider the latest
information to receive more
attention than processing.

- Cognitive neuroscience: Khoa hc thn kinh nhn thc

- Stimuli: Kch thch
- Encode: M ha

I. Introduction to the brain

I.2. How do our brains deal with language ?

The significance
of the information to
be taken out

Handle the language

is affected by the context
of language and not
language.

Recall
information and unity
new information

II. Aphasia
1

What is
Aphasia?

Major division
of Aphasia

a. Brocas Aphasia
b. Wernickes Aphasia

II. APHASIA
II.1. What is Aphasia ?
Aphasia: is the neurological term used to refer to language disorders.

Causes: A stroke, a tumor, a gunshot wound, or an infection.

Aphasia may cause difficulties in speaking, listening, reading, and
writing, but do not affect intelligence.

II. Aphasia

II.2. Major division of aphasias

All aphasia can be classified into 2 groups
II.2.a. Non-fluent aphasia
II.2.b. Fluent aphasias

II. Aphasia
II.2. Major division of aphasias

BROCAS AREA AND WERNICKES

AREA

Paul Broca
French scientist

Carl Wernicke
German neurologist

II.2.a. Brocas region: A front part of the left hemisphere of the brain.
II.2.b. Wernickes region: Posterior part of the left brain.

II. Aphasia
II.2. Major division of aphasias

II.2.a. Brocas Aphasia

- Speech is non-fluent, slow and laboured and agrammtical (lack of grammar).
- Word-finding pauses.
- Loss of function word.
- Comprehension can be relatively preserved.

II. Aphasia
II.2. Major division of aphasias
This image shows Mr. Leborgne's brain, which is now preserved
in a museum in Paris.

II. Aphasia
II.2. Major division of aphasias

II.2.b. Wernickers Aphasia

Produce fluent speech with good intonation.
Lexical errors (word substitutions)
Often phonological errors.
Have difficulty in comprehending speech

II. Aphasia
II.2. Major division of aphasias

AN EXPERIENCE

II. Aphasia
II.2. Major division of aphasias

II. Aphasia
II.2. Major division of aphasias

III. The evoluation of language

III. The evoluation of language

III.1. The relationship between the development of
language and the evolutionary development of the
human species.

III. The evoluation of language

Many of those who support the discontinuity view
believe that language is species-specific.

- Discontinuity:
Tnh gin on

III. The evoluation of language

III.2. Hypothesis
In trying to understand the development of language, scholars
have debated the role played by the vocal tract and the ear.

- Hypothesis: Ga thuyt
- Vocal tract: Thanh qun

III. The evoluation of language

III.2. Hypothesis
The development of language is linked to the evolutionary
development of the speech production and perception apparatus.
This would be accompanied by changes in the brain and the
nervous system towards greater complexity.
The language of our human ancestors of millions of
years ago may have been syntactically and
phonologycally simpler than any language know
to us today.
-

Perception apparatus: B my nhn thc

Nervous system: H thn kinh
Syntactically: C php
Phonologically: m v hc

III. The evoluation of language

III.2. Hypothesis
- THERE ARE 4 TYPES IN THIS HYPOTHESIS:
The Gestural

The Vocalization

III. The evoluation of language

III.2. Hypothesis
Mother-child Interaction

The neural

III. The evoluation of language

III.3. The brain is neurologically equipped to learn language
rather than speech:
We know from the study of humans who are born deaf and learn
sign languages which are used around them, that the ability to
hear speech sounds is not a necessary condition for the
acquisition and use of language.

- Neurological: H thn kinh

III. The evoluation of language

III.4. The evolution of language

- The complexity of language could have been caused by a
single event or one mutation in the evolution of the
species.
- The language faculty originated from a convergence of a
number of evolutionary developments.
-The major step in the development of language most
probably relates to evolutionary changes in the brain.
Faculty: Kh nng ca thn th hoc tr c

IV. The autonomy

of language
1

Definition

Idiot savant

a. Laura
b. Christopher

IV. The autonomy of language

IV.1. Definition
Autonomy of language:
The independence of language as genetically conditioned cognitive
system which is not derived from the general intellectual capacities of
human species.

IV. The autonomy of language

IV.1. Definition

Brain Damage
Cognitive
deficiencies

Language can be
independent of
other cognitive
systems or of
general intellectual
abilities

IV. The autonomy of language

Kim Peek
(11.11.1951 19.12.2009)

IV. The autonomy of language

IV.2. Idiot savant

Recently simply called savants
Despite their disabilities in certain spheres, they

show remarkable talents in others

Most of the savants have been reported to be
linguistically handicapped

IV. The autonomy of language

IV.2. Idiot savant

Laura

IV. The autonomy of language

IV.2. Idiot savant

IV.2.a. Laura
Non-verbal IQ of 41-44
Lacking almost all number

concepts including basic counting

priciples
Drawing at a pre-school level
Processing an auditory
memory span limited to three
units

IV. The autonomy of language

IV.2. Idiot savant
IV.2.a. Laura

At the age of 16, she produced sytactically

complex sentences like:

- He was saying that I lost my battery powered watch that I
loved; I just loved that watch
- Last year at school when I first went there, three tickets
were gave out by a police last year
In a sentence imitation task she both detected and corrected
surface syntactic and morphological errors

IV. The autonomy of language

IV.2. Idiot savant

CHRISTOPHER

IV. The autonomy of language

IV.2. Idiot savant

IV.2.b. Christopher
Linguistic savant
Non-verbal IQ between

60 and 70
Be institutionalized
because he is unable to
take care of himself

IV. The autonomy of language

IV.2. Idiot savant
IV.2.b. Christopher
When given texts in

some fifteen or sixteen

languages, he translates
them immediately into
English
The languages include:
Danish, Dutch, German,
French, Italian, Spanish,
Polish, Greek, Turkish...

IV. The autonomy of language

IV.2. Idiot savant

Language develops against a background of deficits

in general and non-linguistic intellectual abilities