Basic Aspects of Psycholinguistics

[Real]

Thanks Mam...for your valuable post ..as I am a student of Psycholinguistics course I took note from this post & this post helps me......


Md. Mehedi Hassan (Real)
19th Batch
Dept. of English
Daffodil International University

[Antara11]

Dear Real,

Thanks for being connected in Forum.

[shipra]

Very good to know some basic ideas of psycholinguistics in a nutshell. Carry on, Antara di.

[Antara11]

Language and Brain

Language: a function of the peculiar structure of the human brain.
Brain contributes in linguistic skills, such as producing and understanding speech. 
The process of identifying the parts of the brain that are involved in language began in 1861.

Brain is divided into two hemispheres: the left and right hemispheres. The hemispheres are connected by bundle of nerve fibers: the corpus callosum.
Each hemisphere controls opposite side of body which is called Contralateral control.

Left hemisphere is responsible for:

Analytical processing (analyzing information)
Language, speech sounds
Mathematics
Temporal relations
Intellectual reasoning

Right hemisphere is responsible for:

Holistic processing (recognizing overall patterns, e.g., face recognition)
Nonspeech sounds
Music
Visual-spatial skills
Emotional reactions

Broca’s area: In 1861 Paul Broca, a French neurosurgeon, examined human brain and identified the existence of a “language centre” in the posterior portion of the frontal lobe of left hemisphere. This part of Brain is known as Broca’s area.Broca’s area organizes articulatory patterns of language; also controls use of inflectional, function morphemes.

Wernicke’s area: Ten years later, Carl Wernicke, a German neurologist, discovered another part of the brain, this one involved in understanding language, in the posterior portion of the left temporal lobe. This part of brain is named after Wernicke.Wernicke’s area is involved in comprehension and selection of words from mental lexicon.

[Antara11]

Aphasia:

Any language insufficiency caused by damage to the brain (e.g., bullet, stroke, infection, etc.). Aphasia almost always caused by left hemisphere damage

Broca’s aphasia:
Labored, halting speech
Lack of inflections and function morphemes
Comprehension is generally good

Wernicke’s aphasia:
Speech is fluent (i.e., can use function words, inflections) but semantically incoherent
Lexical errors, nonsense words
Comprehension is poor

[shipra]

Your post is very helpful to see some matters of psycholinguistics in a brief.

[Antara11]

Thanks dear Shipra.