Language and the Brain

Neuroscience and Linguistics

LINK AND COMMONALITIES

The Language-Ready Brain

Linguistics authorities Boeckx and Benitez-Burraco (2014) Theorize that modern man possesses a language-ready brain structure, which earlier homo species did not. This, they believe, came as a result of developmental changes shown by a more globular braincase in modern man from the time of the split of species from the Neanderthal-Denisovans. The development changes were primarily in the cortical level, accompanied by anatomical changes in the sub-cortical level, which resulted in this globularity. Modern man's resulting capacity for language can be gleaned from and explained by the functional consequences of these changes. These experts point to the thalamus, which is mainly responsible for the uniquely evolved language and human cognition of modern homo sapiens (Boeckx & Benitez-Burraco)/

Boeckx & Benitez-Burraco (2014) isolated a probable gene, which could be strongly influential in the unique development and connectivity of the thalamus as well as the evolution of the human head. Its parts or components may also be responsible for language-associated cognitive disorders. This probable gene set may prove useful in the better understanding of the genetic basis of modern man's speech capability. His "language-ready brain" concept makes the brain the focus of inquiry. At the same time, it makes the difference clear about two separate entities. One is the language-ready brain's properties as the setting for language ontogeny and phylogeny. The other is an understanding of language as a set of properties gathered by human beings as the consequence of social interaction. Another aspect that must be emphasized is that many properties of languages are also products gathered through cultural evolution. Essentially, these experts wish to bring broader understanding on the formation of the language-ready brain, which is only one aspect of the completely shaped linguistic brain of the modern man (Boeckx & Benitez-Burraco).

Ge and his team (2015) explored the processing of language by the brain by native speakers of various languages and compared two major views on brain mechanisms.

The first proposes a commonality, while the second argues for specificity. The authors evaluated cortical dynamics in processing Chinese and English through a functional MRI and causal modeling analysis. They thoroughly computed and compared all possible connections among the nodes of the cortical language parts of the brain. They found that information moved from the posterior to the anterior of the temporal cortex in common between Chinese and English speakers in the speech comprehension stage. The difference is that the left posterior portion of the temporal cortex sent neural signals to the inferior frontal gyrun in the English speaker. In comparison, these neural signals moved from the bilateral anterior portion of the temporal cortex in Chinese speaker.(Ge et al.).