The Importance Of Language Representation In The Brain

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Language is a species-specific and species-uniform faculty that all (and only) human beings are endowed with.The American linguist Noam Chomsky terms this uniformly distributed ability to acquire languge, Language Acquisition Device. Chomsky claims that linguistic competence is the product of a species-specific innate language faculty, and it is further maintained that this faculty is independent of other cognitive capacities. Language acquisition and production are mysterious and complex mechanisms and so much study had gone into these fields. But though the ability is unifom, there are sometimes aberrations in the acquisition, and later in reception or production of language, in some individuals. Such problems or abnormalities regarding the processing or expression of linguistic information are called language impairments or language disorders.
Cognitive capacities are the product of structures in the brain. Like all the other cognitive abilities, language is also centred on the functioning of brain. Studies in neurolinguistics have proved that language has a specific location in human brain. Neurolinguistics addresses the question of how linguistic knowledge is represented in the brain. The highly developed brain with multiple layers is the most remarkable characteristic of human beings, distinguishing him/her from other primates, making him/her a thinking animal. Different parts of the brain are associated with different functions.The layer which has most recently evolved and is most characteristic of higher primates is the cerebral cortex, the folded surface of the cerebral hemispheres which contain what is called grey matter, where higher intellectual functions, including language are located. Damages caused to this area ca...

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...ge level; (ii) poor language functioning must be out of keeping with other aspects of development (this is normally interpreted as a substantial discrepancy between a language test score and non-verbal IQ); (iii) possible physical causes (e.g. hearing loss, acquired brain damage or abnormal structure of the articulators) and recognized syndromes associated with language delay (e.g. autism) are excluded.
Specific language impairment (SLI) is one of the most common childhood disorders, affecting 7% of children. These children experience difficulties in understanding and producing spoken language despite normal intelligence, normal hearing, and normal opportunities to learn language in the absence of any obvious neurological problems. The causes of SLI are still hotly debated, ranging from nonlinguistic deficits in auditory perception to high-level deficits in grammar.

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