Language and brain
when experiments are unfeasible you have to think harder
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.2005.1.2.151Keywords:
Brain, Connectionism, Cortical Column, Evidence, Learning, Neuron, Perception, Relational NetworkAbstract
Investigations of how the brain processes language have been concerned almost entirely with localizing linguistic functions in the cortex, ignoring the more interesting questions of what is going on in those locations and how linguistic information is represented. The reason is that questions of localization are easier to study, through aphasiology and brain imaging. But there is abundant evidence, both linguistic and neurological, that reveals answers to the more basic questions. The evidence strongly supports a connectionist view of linguistic information rather than one in which the brain stores symbols as such. Symbolic accounts are incompatible with neuroanatomical evidence and require impossible assumptions about brain function. In contrast, relational network theory, a version of connectionism, provides an account of the operation of the brain that is consistent with numerous details of cortical anatomy and function, while also being consistent with quantitative estimates of cortical capacity.
References
Churchland, P. and Sejnowski, T. (1992) The Computational Brain. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Damasio, A. (1989) The brain binds entities and events by multiregional activation from convergence zones. Neural Computation 1: 123–32.
Damasio, A. (1994) Descartes’ Error: emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York: Putnam.
Dehaene, S., Dupoux, E., Mehler, J., Cohen, L., Paulesu, E., et al. (1997) Anatomical variability in the cortical representation of first and second language. NeuroReport 8: 3809–15.
Eggert, G. H. (1977) Wernicke’s Works on Aphasia: a sourcebook and review. The Hague: Mouton.
Goldberg, A. (1995) Constructions: a construction grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Hjelmslev, L. [1943] (1961) Prolegomena to a Theory of Language. English translation by F. J. Whitfield. (Originally published in Danish as Omkring Sprogteoriens Grundlœggelse by E. Munksgaard, Copenhagen.) Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Hubel, D. and Wiesel, T. N. (1962) Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional architecture in the cat’s visual cortex. Journal of Physiology (London) 160: 106–54.
Hubel, D. and Wiesel, T. N. (1977) Functional architecture of Macaque monkey cortex. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 198: 1–559.
Kim, K. H. S., Relkin, N. R., Lee, K. M. and Hirsch, J. (1997) Distinct cortical areas associated with native and second languages. Nature 388: 171–4.
Lamb, S. M. (1966) Outline of Stratificational Grammar. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Lamb, S. M. (1970) Linguistic and cognitive networks. In P. L. Garvin (ed.) Cognition: a multiple view. New York: Spartan Books.
Lamb, S. M. (1999) Pathways of the Brain: the neurocognitive basis of language. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins.
Lamb, S. M. (2000) Bidirectional processing in language and related cognitive systems. In M. Barlowe and S. Kemmer (eds) Usage-Based Models of Language. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Lamb, S. M. (2004) Language and Reality. Edited by J. Webster. London and New York: Continuum.
Lederer, R. (1987) Anguished English. New York: Dell Publishing.
Mountcastle, V. B. (1998) Perceptual Neuroscience: the cerebral cortex. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Müller, E-A. (2000) Valence and phraseology in stratificational linguistics. In D. G Lockwood, P. H. Fries and J. E. Copeland (eds) Functional Approaches to Language, Culture, and Cognition. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins.
Papanicolaou, A. C. (1998) Fundamentals of Functional Brain Imaging: a guide to the methods and their applications to psychology and behavioral neuroscience. Lisse: Swets and Zeitlinger.
Pinker, S. (1994) The Language Instinct. New York: Morrow.
Reich, P. (1985) Unintended puns. LACUS Forum XI: 314–22.
Rizzolatti, G. and Arbib, M. A. (1998) Language within our grasp. Trends in Neurosciences 21: 188–94.
Rumelhart, D. E and McClelland, J. L. (1986) Parallel Distributed Processing: explorations in the microstructure of cognition. Cambridge: MIT Press.