Until recently, the brain has been a mystery. Now, after
scientific advancements, some areas of the brain have been linked to language.
Primary Somatic Motor Area
Penifield and Roberts (1959) located the primary somatic
motor area and discovered that it controls all voluntary bodily movements. This
area stretches down from the top of the braina dn runs through both
hemispheres. They found that each section of the area accounts for a body part
upside down (i.e. the top of the area controls the feet). However, ‘a
disproportionate amount of space is allocated to the area controlling the hands
and mouth’ (Aithchison, 1998), showing that it must allow us to use precise
movements in both sign language and spoken communication.
Broca’s Aphasia
If people have brain damage in ‘broca’s area’ (left frontal
cortex in the left hemisphere) they are very unlikely to have the ability to
produce utterances normally. For example, many people with this problem speak
very slowly and ungrammatically (i.e. many drop the –ed ending in English verbs).
However, some people are able to retain this grammatical information
and production ability. This shows that even though it is incredibly likely
that Broca’s area is related very closely to language, there may be other areas
in the brain with similar functions.
Wernicke’s Aphasia
Carl Wenicke located another area in the brain, located in
the left temporal lobe. If patients have Wernicke’s aphasia, they usually
produce grammatically correct sentences, however include made-up words that
often do not fit. Therefore, this area may be responsible for the retrieval of
words and linguistic memory.
Future of Brain Imaging
Some theorists believe that various areas of the brain will
be found to be responsible for language. For example, Chomsky’s LAD (Language
Acquisition Device) which may give children an expectation of language and
grammar though linguistic universals and therefore hastens the learning process.
However, no such area has currently been found.
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