Neurolinguistica

Introduction to Neurolinguistics

Introduction to Neurolinguistics

Elisabeth Ahlsén
Göteborg University

John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia

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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Coverdesign: Françoise Berserik
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ahlsén, Elisabeth Introduction to Neurolinguistics / by Elisabeth Ahlsén p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. . Neurolinguistics. I. Title. QP399.A39 2006 62.8’2336--dc22 ISBN 90 272 3233 4 (Hb; alk. paper) / 90 272 3234 2 (Pb; alk. paper) 2006042986

© 2006 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book maybe reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Company • P.O. Box 36224 • 020 me Amsterdam • The Netherlands John Benjamins North America • P.O. Box 2759 • Philadelphia PA 98-059 • USA

Table of contents

Preface Copyright acknowledgement List of tables List of figures

vii ix xxi

Part I: Introduction to neurolinguistics
1. What is neurolinguistics? 2. The development of theories about brain and language 3. Models and frameworks in neurolinguistics today 3 9 35

Part II: Neurolinguistics for different components of language
4. 5. 6. 7. Phonology in neurolinguistics Morphology and syntax in neurolinguistics Lexical semantics The semantics and pragmatics ofcommunicative contributions in context from a neurolinguistic perspective 55 67 79 97

Part III: Specific topics in neurolinguistics
8. Reading and writing from a neurolinguistic perspective 9. Neurolinguistic aspects of bilingualism 10. On the evolution and development of the brain, communication, and language 11. Multimodality in neurolinguistics 111 121 129 145

vi

Introduction toNeurolinguistics

Part IV: Resource chapters
12. Methods of investigating the brain 13. Modeling the brain 14. Some basic concepts in neuroscience 161 167 179 189 205

References Index

Preface
It is not uncommon to search for a particular type of book, only to discover that you will have to write it yourself. The idea of this book emanates from a conversation with a representative of John Benjaminsat an International Cognitive Linguistics Conference some years ago, concerning the difficulty of finding an up-to-date book of reasonable size, price and coverage for introductory courses in neurolinguistics. By then, I had been teaching such courses for students of linguistics and communication disorders for a long time. Both of us were well aware of this problem, and when it was suggested that Ishould write such a book, I agreed. We were also in agreement concerning the relative lack of communication between neurolinguistics and cognitive linguistics, pragmatics and communication studies at the time and the need for these areas to be better integrated into basic neurolinguistics. This discussion and further reflections on the “state of the art” led to the fairly broad selection of topicsthat are covered in this book and to the relative weighting given to the different chapters. One important concern has been to place the different theories, methods and studies discussed in a historical perspective, showing how different frameworks have developed, sometimes in parallel, sometimes in sequence, and left their traces on the ways we think about language and the brain and how we applythis thinking in our research and therapy. The book grew gradually out of many years’ work, as preliminary versions were used in introductory courses, and chapters were revised and added. This book is a basic introduction to neurolinguistics, intended for anybody who wants to acquire a grounding in the field. It was written for students of linguistics and communication disorders, but students of...