Language is Everywhere

Language and the Mind / Brain

Previous sections of this exhibit (such as the culture section) have discussed language as something “external” -- something people use as part of culture, something we can place in a region on a map or point to in the world. However, language is also a key into the human mind and brain. Language is partly innate, partly learned. Like many of the skills that humans acquire in the first few years of life, language is usually acquired effortlessly and with minimal overt instruction (despite what many parents believe). The fact that children learn the language(s) of their families and communities shows that they learn by interacting with people around them. Stanford University’s Wordbank shows some of the nuts and bolts of language acquisition across 29 languages (unfortunately mostly languages and cultures of English or European origin). Language acquisition doesn’t start from birth, though. Even before birth kids are exposed to speech sounds. They probably can’t hear individual words but they can perceive the melody of language (that is, what’s known as the intonation). 

When the brain processes speech, there’s a lot going on, and it’s not just auditory.

How our Brains Process Speech

This diagram provides a general idea of how spoken language is produced and processed.  Words are represented in the brain in what we might call a "mental dictionary," which contains information about the word's meaning and pronunciation. When we form a sentence, we use the information in this dictionary, combined with knowledge of morphology and syntax (how words are combined together in a sentence) to form a sentence. Instructions are sent to the motor apparatus which forms the sentence as speech. Speech is sound waves that the listener hears, recognizes as speech, and then decodes. Sign language processing is understudied but works in a similar way: with a mental dictionary of signs which are combined using morphology and syntax in a particular way; this is then sent to the motor system (for the hands and face), and then decoded by the interlocutor. 

Featured Titles

Neurolinguistics: An introduction to spoken language processing and its disorders

by John C. L. Ingram 

Speaking or signing a sentence involves complex pathways all throughout the brain – memory, motor planning, as well as the areas associated with language itself.

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Gesture & thought

by David McNeill

While we tend to think of gesture as separate from language, but in fact our gestures are very closely intertwined with speech.

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Metaphors we live by

by George Latkoff & Mark Johnson

This book gives us an insight into how we use metaphor and imagery and what it tells us about mental and social categorization. Though largely focused on English, the authors do discuss some variation in metaphors across the world.

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First language acquisition

by Eve V. Clark

For the most part, children acquire the language(s) of the people around them without overt instruction. This book provides a detailed snapshot of how children (particularly monolingual children in western societies) acquire their first languages.

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