Module 2.1

Language and the Brain

If it is true, as Chomsky insists, that language is a special faculty, with its own rules and structure, and if it is also the case that a human baby is born with a specific language-learning facility - the LAD - then we might expect to find some trace of this in the architecture of the human brain. Certainly, the brain is not an undifferentiated porridge ; it is a complex organism that is both structurally and functionally differentiated. Some of the differences are quite surprising - and do indicate that the human brain is primed for language. Take the case of what are called aphasias.

Broca's best known patient was a man named 'Tan' ; he was called this because it was the only word he was capable of producing. When he died, Broca carried out an autopsy, looked at the brain, and discovered a lesion in the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere - the area which is now known as 'Broca's region'. People whose brains have been damaged in this area have trouble putting words in the right order - if they can speak at all. This is an example of how they sound.

We might think that here we have found the language module. But we know that there is at least one other area that is important in the processing of language. When Wernicke's region is damaged, the patient may sound like this.

So perhaps language is related to two different parts of the brain. However, we cannot assume that just because a person loses mastery of a particular skill when a particular bit of his brain is damaged that this is where that skill is stocked. This would be a little as if we were to say that travel by train is commanded at a particular point on the track because all traffic was interrupted after flooding in that zone. Broca's area is important in the production of language and so is Wernicke's ; but is there really a hard and fast relationship between brain-zone and function? Look at this.

Moreover, aphasias have been associated with several other areas of the brain. Even the right hand side - which at one time researchers dubbed 'the silent brain' - contributes in crucial ways to language - intonation and stress pattern call on it - as does a sense of humour. Paul Broca declared 'Nous parlons avec notre cerveau gauche' - but the most recent brain research suggests that we speak with all our brain. As Elizabeth Bates (in an article that you can download, arguing against the modular view of language and in which she offers a short rebuttal of Pinker) says, even if some bits of the organ contribute more to 'getting a particular process underway', knowledge about language is distributed throughout the brain.

Normal language-use calls on many different sub-skills - and, as Deacon (citing Bates) argues, it may be that different languages call on rather different sub-skills. Correct sequencing - getting the words in the right order - is very important for someone speaking English. For someone who speaks a highly inflected language - like Italian - it may be less so. But they have to make sure they get the inflections right.

Recap 1. Whilst there is evidence that interference with certain areas of the brain has repercussions for specific linguistic skills - and in particular the two main aphasias (Broca's and Wernicke's) are associated with identifiable zones - we cannot assume that this demonstrates the modularity of language.

Now go on to part 2