LANGUAGE AND THE BRAIN

       A.      INTRODUCTION

Language and the Brain Language are the essential components of the human intellect. These are the principal devices that enable individuals to formulate their thoughts and virtually communicate them to others. The concept of language, which we tend to take for granted, is often appropriately phrased “the window of the mind”.

Through language, we can analyzing, interoperate, and express the world around us. Ostensibly, it is easy to assume that the basis of language lies in the lips, the tongue, or the ear. However, deaf and mute people are also capable of possessing language in its entirety. Sign language, which is dependent upon visible gestures rather than distinct sounds, is an infinitely creative form of communication (as well as its verbal counterpart).

There are many theories that hypothesize language acquisition. However, they all revolve around the human ability of complex thought. This enormous potential takes root in an organ of the same infinite magnitude: the brain. Language acquisition is one of the essential subjects of cognitive science.

    B.       LANGUAGE AND THE BRAIN

  1.                  Language Processing in Human Brain

Human brain is exceptionally complex and simple at the same time. Its extremely composite biological structure results itself in human everyday behavior that many people might consider rather simple than complex. In our research we will concentrate on the ways how a human brain can process English and other human natural languages because taken in general sense the ability to speak English or other human languages is only serious distinguishing feature that rises humans over the rest of the world making a human an intellectual being.

On the purpose of our research we consider natural language as naturally formed symbolic system completely independent of these symbols’ physical nature that is a little more general than a common natural language definition. The principles of natural language processing in human brain are most important for us if we want to build equally powerful artificial general intelligence.

We start with the features of human brain neurons and neural networks, and step by step create a computer model of human brain networks that is able to process and generate a reasonable speech. We can’t give a detailed explanation of human brain functionality in this short article. Moreover, it is not our goal, and such research is not complete yet. The main result of our research is revealing the principles how tiny single neurons working together can produce intellectual-like behaviour that exhibits itself in proper speech comprehension and generation in accordance with current context.

2.                  Language as Shaped by the Brain

It is widely assumed that human learning and the structure of human languages are intimately related. This relationship is frequently suggested to be rooted in a language-specific biological endowment, which encodes universal, but arbitrary, principles of language structure (a universal grammar or UG). How might such a UG have evolved? We argue that UG could not have arisen either by biological adaptation or non-adaptationist genetic processes.

The resulting puzzle concerning the origin of UG we call the logical problem of language evolution. Because the processes of language change are much more rapid than processes of genetic change, language constitutes a “moving target” both over time and across different human populations, and hence cannot provide a stable environment to which UG genes could have adapted.

We conclude that a biologically determined UG is not evolutionarily viable. Instead, the original motivation for UG the mesh between learners and languages arises because language has been shaped to fit the human brain, rather than vice versa. Following Darwin, we view language itself as a complex and interdependent “organism,” which evolves under selectional pressures from human learning and processing mechanisms.

That is, languages are themselves undergoing severe selectional pressure from each generation of language users and learners. This suggests that apparently arbitrary aspects of linguistic structure may result from general learning and processing biases, independent of language. We illustrate how this framework can integrate evidence from different literatures and methodologies to explain core linguistic phenomena, including binding constraints, word order universals, and diachronic language change.

In human beings, it is the left hemisphere that usually contains the specialized language areas. While this holds true for 97% of right-handed people, about 19% of left-handed people have their language areas in the right hemisphere and as many as 68% of them have some language abilities in both the left and the right hemisphere.

The brain acts as "command central" for language and communication, controlling both physical and mental components of speech. Steps that trigger speech: Many areas of the brain work together to control speech, as illustrated. The specific regions used differ slightly for reading aloud or engaging in conversation. The visual cortex (1A) is engaged when reading aloud while the auditory cortex (1B) predominates during conversation.

The two hemispheres are thought to contribute to the processing and understanding of language: the left hemisphere processes the linguistic meaning of prosody (or, the rhythm, stress, and intonation of connected speech), while the right hemisphere processes the emotions conveyed by prosody.

Studies of children have shown that if a child has damage to the left hemisphere, the child may develop language in the right hemisphere instead. The younger the child, the better the recovery. So, although the "natural" tendency is for language to develop on the left, human brains are capable of adapting to difficult circumstances, if the damage occurs early enough.

The first language area within the left hemisphere to be discovered is Broca's area, named after Paul Broca, who discovered the area while studying patients with aphasia, a language disorder. Broca's area doesn't just handle getting language out in a motor sense, though. It seems to be more generally involved in the ability to process grammar itself, at least the more complex aspects of grammar. For example, it handles distinguishing a sentence in passive form from a simpler subject-verb-object sentence, the difference between "The boy was hit by the girl" and "The girl hit the boy."

The second language area to be discovered is called Wernicke's area, after Carl Wernicke, a German neurologist who discovered the area while studying patients who had similar symptoms to Broca's area patients but damage to a different part of their brain. Wernicke's aphasia is the term for the disorder occurring upon damage to a patient's Wernicke's area.

       C.      CONCLUSION

Comparison of the views of co evolution of language and brain has a two sided result. On one hand brain has been shaped by and for language and has become “brain of the language”, and on the other hand, language has changed to better suit communicative demands offered by the users and learning acquisition of children and has become “language of the brain”.

Babies’ brain is primed to learn language and it does this by making pathways and stronger connections, which may extend upto the age of 10 years. The two classical language areas, Broca’s and Wernicke’s, are important brain areas for language processing but many other LH and RH parts of the brain are involved in the task. The usage of these parts depend on language used, task performed (name or recognize), conceptual category of items (unique, common, familiar), modularity of input and output (spoken language or sign language) and number of languages known to individual.

For optimal retrieval of words of different categories different anatomically separable regions are involved, while for concept retrieval some regions are consistently associated. This says partial segregation of different categories. The LH is found to be dominant in language processing with many tasks affected by LH lesions. But overall composition of language, in some sense, is distributed over the two hemispheres. LH is generally related to fine aspects of sentence processing and literal meaning and RH to visual spatial abilities.

The standard LH areas may be common to all natural languages but the final organization of language system appears to be determined by the exact language experience of the individual. In case of bilinguals the age of acquisition of language and language environment seems to effect the language organization. Different brain areas may be recruited for different languages. But when proficiency is kept constant, age of acquisition doesn’t seem to have much effect.

From various studies and results mentioned, it can be concluded that language is not a function restricted to one hemisphere of the brain, but both the Left and the Right hemispheres have their own vital role in language processing. When the parts of the two hemispheres perform their respective tasks, some areas of brain take the charge of leader and lead them to the completion of task successfully. The overall organization of language in brain depends upon the individual and the proficiency and the way he had acquired the language.