Brain and Language

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the relationship between brain and language. The typically asymmetric distribution of language functions in the brain is perhaps the most important component of the concept of hemispheric dominance or specialization. However, the lateralization of language seems to be neither consistent nor unidirectional across different linguistic levels, and much of the evidence is, to say the least, controversial. Positron emission tomography (PET) and electroencephalography (EEG) studies clearly show right-hemisphere changes in activity in homologous cortical locations to the left-hemisphere sites during all language tasks even during the simple naming tasks. It can, therefore, be concluded that there is much more to the right hemisphere's contribution to language than superficially tapped by the lesion studies. The fact that the left-hemisphere PET changes are often larger than the right-hemisphere PET changes in a language task seems a weak basis on which to assume that the change in metabolism exclusively or even primarily reflects language processing.