Language and the Brain
When Experiments Are Unfeasible, You Have to Think Harder
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48162/rev.57.020Keywords:
brain, connectivism, cortical column, empirical evidence, learning, neuron, perception, relational networksAbstract
Research into how the brain organizes language has focused almost exclusively on the location of linguistic functions, leaving aside the more interesting questions of what happens in those locations and how linguistic information is represented. The reason for this is that questions about location are easier to address, through aphasiology and neuroimaging. However, there is abundant empirical evidence, both linguistic and neurological, that provides answers to the more fundamental questions. This evidence strongly supports a connectivist conception of linguistic information rather than a conception in which the brain stores symbols as such. Characterizations of language in terms of a repository of symbols are incompatible with neuroanatomical evidence and require impossible assumptions about how the brain works. In contrast, Relational Network Theory, which is one version of connectivism, provides an explanation of brain processes that is consistent not only with numerous details of cortical anatomy and function but also with quantitative estimates of cortical capacity.
References
Chafe, W. (2000). Loci of diversity and convergence in thought and language. In M. Pütz and M. H. Verspoor (eds) Explorations in Linguistic Relativity. John Benjamins.
Churchland, P. and Sejnowski, T. (1992). The Computational Brain. 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. Putnam.
Dehaene, S., Dupoux, E., Mehler, J., Cohen, I., Paulesu, E., et al. (1997). Anatomical variability in the cortical representation of first and second language. NeuroReport, 8, 3809-3815.
Eggert, G. H. (1977). Wernicke’s Works on Aphasia: a sourcebook and review. Mouton.
Goldberg, A. (1995). Constructions: a construction grammar approach to argument structure. 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 Grundlæggelse by E. Munksgaard, Copenhagen), 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. Georgetown University Press.
Lamb, S. M. (1970). Linguistic and cognitive networks. In P. L. Garvin (ed.), Cognition: a multiple view, Spartan Books.
Lamb, S. M. (1999). Pathways of the Brain: the neurocognitive basis of language. 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, CSLI Publications.
Lamb, S. M. (2004). Language and Reality. Edited by J. Webster. Continuum.
Lederer, R. (1987). Anguished English. 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, Benjamins.
Papanicolaou, A. C. (1998). Fundamentals of Functional Brain Imaging: a guide to the methods and their applications to psychology and behavioral neuroscience. Swets and Zeitlinger.
Pinker, S. (1994). The Language Instinct. Morrow.
Reich, P. (1985). Unintended puns. LACUS Forum, 11, 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. MIT Press.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Sydney Lamb
Esta obra está bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Atribución 2.5 Argentina.
Los/as autores/as que publican en esta revista están de acuerdo con los siguientes términos:
1. Los/as autores conservan los derechos de autor y garantizan a la revista el derecho de ser la primera publicación del trabajo bajo una licecncia Creative Commons Atribución 2.5 Argentina (CC BY 2.5 AR) . Por esto pueden compartir el trabajo con la referencia explícita de la publicación original en esta revista.
2. Anales de lingüística permite y anima a los autores a difundir la publicación realizada electrónicamente, a través de su enlace y/o de la versión postprint del archivo descargado de forma independiente.
3. Usted es libre de:
Compartir — copiar y redistribuir el material en cualquier medio o formato
Adaptar — remezclar, transformar y construir a partir del material para cualquier propósito, incluso comercialmente.
