Neurolinguistics
Study of brain mechanisms controlling language comprehension, production, and acquisition.
Neurolinguistics is the study of neural mechanisms in the human brain that control the comprehension, production, and acquisition of language. As an interdisciplinary field, it draws methods and theories from neuroscience, linguistics, cognitive science, communication disorders, and neuropsychology, and investigates how the brain implements processes proposed by theoretical and psycholinguistic models.
- field
- Interdisciplinary field combining neuroscience, linguistics, cognitive science, communication disorders, and neuropsychology
- known_for
- Study of neural mechanisms underlying language comprehension, production, and acquisition; use of aphasiology, brain imaging, electrophysiology, and computer modeling
- key_contributors
- Paul Broca, Carl Wernicke, Korbinian Brodmann, Edith Crowell Trager, Henri Hecaen, Alexandr Luria, Harry Whitaker
Lore & Background
Neurolinguistics is historically rooted in 19th-century aphasiology, the study of linguistic deficits from brain damage. Paul Broca, a French surgeon, conducted autopsies on individuals with speaking deficiencies and found lesions on the left frontal lobe, now Broca's area, providing early empirical evidence linking a brain region to language. Carl Wernicke later proposed that Broca's area handles motor production of speech and Wernicke's area handles auditory speech comprehension, establishing the field of aphasiology. Early 20th-century work by Korbinian Brodmann mapped the brain's surface into numbered areas based on cytoarchitecture, still used today.
Reader's Guide
The field broadened considerably with the emergence of brain imaging technologies (PET, fMRI) and electrophysiological techniques (EEG, MEG), notably after the 1980 discovery of the N400, a brain response sensitive to semantic issues. Neurolinguistics tests and evaluates theories from psycholinguistics and theoretical linguistics, analyzing brain activity to infer how neural populations carry out processing algorithms. Research covers localization of language processes, time course of processing, language acquisition, and language pathology, using techniques such as aphasiology, brain imaging, electrophysiology, and computer modeling.
Did You Know?
- Paul Broca's research on brain lesions in individuals with speaking deficiencies provided early empirical evidence linking a specific brain area to language.
- The N400, discovered in 1980, was the first language-relevant event-related potential identified, using EEG and MEG.
- Korbinian Brodmann mapped the brain's surface into numbered areas based on cell structure and function, still widely used in neuroscience.
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