8 How does human brain process language?

ONE OF THE GREAT MYSTERIES of the human brain is how it understands and
produces language. Until recently, most of the research on this subject had been based
on the study of spoken languages: English, French, German and the like. Starting in the
mid-19th century, scientists made large strides in identifying the regions of the brain
involved in speech. For example, in 1861 French neurologist Paul Broca discovered that
patients who could understand spoken language but had difficulty speaking tended to
have damage to a part of the brain’s left hemisphere that became known as Broca’s area.
And in 1874 German physician Carl Wernicke found that patients with fluent speech
but severe comprehension problems typically had damage to another part of the left
hemisphere, which was dubbed Wernicke’s area.

Similar damage to the brain’s right hemisphere only very rarely results in such language
disruptions, which are called aphasias. Instead right hemisphere damage is more often
associated with severe visual-spatial problems, such as the inability to copy a simple
line drawing. For these reasons, the left hemisphere is often branded the verbal
hemisphere and the right hemisphere the spatial hemisphere. Although this dichotomy
is an oversimplification, it does capture some of the main clinical differences between
individuals with damage to the left side of the brain and those with damage to the right.

Nevertheless, many puzzles remain. One that has been particularly hard to crack is why
language sets up shop where it does. The locations of Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas
seem to make sense: Wernicke’s area, involved in speech comprehension, is located
near the auditory cortex, the part of the brain that receives signals from the ears.
Broca’s area, involved in speech production, is located next to the part of the motor
cortex that controls the muscles of the mouth and lips. But is the brain’s organization for
language truly based on the functions of hearing and speaking? One way to explore this
question is to study a language that uses different sensory and motor channels. Reading
and writing, of course, employ vision for comprehension and hand movements for
expression, but for most people these activities depend, at least in part, on brain
systems involved in the use of a spoken language. The sign languages of the deaf,
however, precisely fit the bill and are therefore perfect for such research.

MANY PEOPLE MISTAKENLY BELIEVE that sign language is just a loose collection of
pantomime-like gestures thrown together willy-nilly to allow rudimentary
communication. But in truth, sign languages are highly structured linguistic systems
with all the grammatical complexity of spoken languages. Just as English and Italian
have elaborate rules for forming words and sentences, sign languages have rules for
individual signs and signed sentences. Contrary to another common misconception,
there is no universal sign language. Deaf people in different countries use very different
sign languages. In fact, a deaf signer who acquires a second sign language as an adult
will actually sign with a foreign accent! Moreover, sign languages are not simply manual
versions of the spoken languages that are used in their surrounding communities.
American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language, for example, are mutually
incomprehensible; in other words, users of these different languages cannot understand
one another.

Sign and spoken languages share the abstract properties of language but differ radically
in their outward form. Spoken languages are encoded in acoustic-temporal changes—
variations
in sound over time. Sign languages, however, rely on visual-spatial changes to signal
linguistic contrasts. But there are also similarities. Sign languages, like spoken
languages, have several kinds of linguistic structure, including phonological (sound),
morphological (form) and syntactic (grammar) levels. Just as spoken words are
composed of a small set of consonants and vowels, signs are made up of a small set of
components which include hand shapes, the locations around the body where signs are
made, the movements of the hands and arms and the orientation of the hands, So
location of a sign is a critical element in conveying meaning. For example, palm up
versus palm down. In American Sign Language the signs for the words “summer”, “ugly”
and “dry” have the same hand shape, movement and orientation, but differ in location.
“Summer” is articulated near the forehead, “ugly” near the nose and “dry” near the chin.
At the morphological level, ASL has grammatical markers that systematically change the
meaning of signs. Morphological markers in English include fragments like “-ed,” which
can be added to most verbs to indicate past tense. However, in ASL the signs are
modified using distinctive spatial patterns or types of movement. At the syntactic level,
ASL specifies the
grammatical relations among signs in ways that do not occur in spoken languages. In
English, for instance, meaning is often embedded in word order. Take the example
“Mary criticised John”. Reverse the order of the names, and you reverse the meaning of
the sentence. Signers of ASL can use word-order cues as well, but they need not. Instead
they can point to a distinct position in space while signing a noun, thus linking the word
with that position. Then the signer can move the verb sign from Mary’s position to
John’s to mean “John criticised Mary” and in the other direction to mean the reverse.

Over the past two decades, we have examined groups of deaf people who communicate
through sign language, and who have suffered damage to either the right or the left
hemisphere of their brains, mostly as a result of a stoke. By evaluating their proficiency
at understanding and producing signs, we set out to determine whether the brain
regions that interpret and generate sign language are the same ones involved in spoken
language. The surprising result have illuminated the workings of the human brain and
may help neurologists treat the ills of their deaf patients.

Questions 1-6
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 57?
In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet. write

YES it the statement agrees with the claims of writer

FALSE if the statement contradicts with the claims of writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this.
 1. Initial research on how the brain processes language was carried out on
European language
2. People who can speak but have trouble understanding language have damage to
part of the left side of the brain.
3. The work of Broca was a great influence on that of Wernicke.
4. The right side of the brain is known as the verbal hemisphere.
5. Broca’s area is concerned with understanding speech.
6. The first sign languages were created in the 19th century.

Questions 7-11
Write the correct letter A-C. Classify the following as referring to
A. sign language only
B. spoken language only
C. both sign and spoken language

7.complex grammatical systems

8.influence of a person’s first language on their second
9.small changes in form that change meaning
10.dependence on word order for meaning
11.the demonstration of a contrast through an action or movement,

Questions 12-14
Choose THREE letters A-F
Which THREE issues are mentioned by the writer ?
12. A. the relevance of aphasia to study of sign language
B. the relationship between the organisation of the brain and the functions of hearing
and speaking
C. the recent popularity of siging in America
D. the difficulty of learning sign language
E. the use of motion to create meaning in ASL
F. the contribution of research to the treatment of the deaf
Choose the correct letter, A,B,C or D
13. Which word does this two-part sign diagram illustrate ?
A.summer
B. ugly
C. dry
D. nose

14. The main purpose of the article is to

A. clarify some facts about how the brain produces language
B. inform the reader about languages for the deaf
C. outline the basics of ASL
D. illustrate the research potential of sign language.