Neurolinguistic perspective

on language learning

Two types of neural pathways

hard- wired pahways (remain unaltered)

plastic pathways (may be continually rewired)

LEARNING
Konrad Lorenz:
geese attach to a man instead of their goose mother if he/she is present
in the period of 15h 3 days after their hatching (imprinting).

Human learning
- Nonassociative (response to a
single kind of stimulus)
- Associative (response to a
subsequent stimulus, e.g. when
we are hungry we salivate at the
sight or smell of food: food =
stimulus, salivation = response)

The brain (about 10 billion nerve

cells/neurons and billions of fibers
that interconnect them)

Corpus callosum a network of two

million fibers.

cortex (gray matter) consists of billions of neurons and it is the decision

making organ, it receives messages from all of the sensory organs,
initiates all voluntary actions, and is a storehouse of our memories,
language is also stored in it.

Language functions

INTERACTIONAL FUNCTION deals with how humans

use language to interact with other members of
community (how they use language socially and
emotionally, e.g.: to show co-operation, anger,
pleasure).
TRANSACTIONAL FUNCTION concerns the human
ability to use language to communicate knowledge, skills
and information.

Language as a distinctive
property of human beings
rules for combining sounds into words (phonology), rules
of word formation (morphology), rules for combining
words into phrases and phrases into sentences (syntax)
and rules for assigning meaning (semantics)
knowledge about grammar that a language user has
about the language, together with a mental dictionary,
represents his or her linguistic competence. Language
is a stream of sounds and the only pauses are made for
breathing. It is our knowledge of language and our
mental lexicon that allow us to understand the sense of
the sound flow.
Ineeda Czech (I need a check)

Can other animals speak human

language?

In 1940s, another chimpanzee Viki was raised by Catherine & Keith

Hayes like a human child for five years. She managed to articulate
(rather poorly) a few words like mama, papa, cup, which was still
remarkable as now we know that non-human primates do not have a
physically structured vocal tract (Yule 1996:31-36).

 Clever Hans was a German horse which could answer

arithmetical questions and tapped out the letters of
alphabet by using hoofbeats. It must have been subtle
visual cues without which Hans didnt get the number of
hoofbeats right.

Merzenich:
When we say that cortical maps are plastic we think
of synaptic changes enhancing or reducing the
number of connections between the neurons.

Critical period(s)
Critical period Hypothesis

-Hubel & Wiesel (1962): the cats brain

is plastic between the 3rd and 8th
month of life.
- brain plasticity is significantly reduced
after the puberty.

Split brains evidence for

lateralization

lack of communication between the two hemispheres

Right brain hemisphere, for example, knows how to use
a pencil in the left hand. But if the person does not see
the pencil, he/she is not able to name or describe it
because there no input for the left brain hemisphere and
no communication between the hemispheres.

Finally

Human brain is capable of learning/rewiring throughout

its entire life. Despite the fact that its plasticity is
radically reduced after puberty, it never loses it
completely (apart from pathological instaces).
Learning a second language seems to delay some
neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimers
disease.

Thank you