Language and brain: Recasting meaning in the definition of human language
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Edna Andrews
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to articulate the central issues and controversies that currently dominate the study of the relationship between language and brain and, as a result, we will attempt to fundamentally redefine the way language is viewed by the neurosciences by recasting traditional linguistic definitions of human language. In order to achieve these goals, we will take into account (1) important aspects of neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and neurofunctionality, (2) the role of imaging technologies (especially PET and fMRI) in formulating specific questions for testing hypotheses about language and the brain, including what these technologies can and cannot do, and (3) a discussion of the myths about the neurological representations of human language. Our conclusions will take into account evidence on aphasias and medial temporal lobe (MTL) damage that directly affects the way we understand the relationship between language, brain, and memory.
© 2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/New York
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Articles in the same Issue
- Nigerian dress as a symbolic language
- Language and brain: Recasting meaning in the definition of human language
- An exploration of the other side of semantic communication: How the spontaneous movements of the human hand add crucial meaning to narrative
- Rethinking gesture phases: Articulatory features of gestural movement?
- Peirce's 10, 28, and 66 sign-types: The simplest mathematics
- Qualitative-quantitative analysis of narrative structures: The narrative roles of immigrants in Spanish television series
- Rethinking our understanding of diagrams
- Old and new covenants: Historical and theological contexts in Scribe's and Halévy's La Juive
- The rod and the crocodile. Temporal relations in textual hermeneutics: An application of Petri nets to semantics
- Transcendence and alterity: On life, communication, and subjectivity
- Analyzing discourse topics and topic keywords
- The fate of semiotics in China
- Victoria Welby and the Signific Movement
