More on how brains learn language

In the article about brain aphasia (couple posts down), we saw the possibility of languages being learned in seperate areas of the brain. Studies also showed that languages learned later in life did not use Broca's area, unlike first languages, suggesting a critical period for the plasticity of Broca's area. However, a study done at the University of Rochester showed that much of our use of language lies in the adaptability of different parts of our brain, not necessarily special areas that differentiate us from other species.

Researchers found that we use different parts of our brain to interpret different types of grammar. Two types of grammer studies was "word-order" sentences, and inflectional sentences. Word-order sentences are what we use in English, subject - verb - object. Ex: Sally greets Bob. We are able to tell by the word order who is the subject performing the action. Languages such as Spanish use reflexive verbs to convey subject-object relationships. Researchers created a study using american sign language, which uses both types of grammar. The results showed that we used parts of brain designed to accomplish other cognitive tasks to determine the subject-object relationships when they showed videos to sign language users.

"In fact, Newman said, in trying to understand different types of grammar, humans draw on regions of the brain that are designed to accomplish primitive tasks that relate to the type of sentence they are trying to interpret. For instance, a word order sentence draws on parts of the frontal cortex that give humans the ability to put information into sequences, while an inflectional sentence draws on parts of the temporal lobe that specialize in dividing information into its constituent parts, the study demonstrated."

We are left with several questions based on this study. 1) What differentiates our brain from other animals that allows us to develop sophisticated spoken language? 2) How does this explain brain aphasia, and the 13-year old's inability to speak Croation after a coma? and 3) Will this change how we teach language to stroke victims? If they have a stroke in their frontal cortex, should we try to teach them an inflectional language?

Reference:

http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/report_how-the-human-brain-learns-language_1377227

http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=3610