Sign activates the auditory area.

[Eleni Koutsomitopoulou]

Hi Eric and all,

Languages are complex systems and it is true that the best part of the brain is
activated when we use them. Neuroscientists are interested in figuring out those
areas that seem to be relatively more "active" during certain language tasks.
For example, for comprehension tasks the right hemisphere seems to be more
"active", which doesn't mean however that the left hemisphere is not.
So, the visual cortex *is* expected to be activated in certain language tasks,
for example reading, or naming of items, etc. The point is that the majority of
relevant studies have shown that the auditory cortex is mostly activated when we
use spoken languages. That is, those areas in the left hemisphere of the brain
are involved in most language tasks, thus considered to be primarily associated
with language. Now, following this line of evidence, every study which offers
evidence that during sign language production (or comprehension) brain activity
is "located" in the same brain areas (that is, the auditory cortex) which is
traditionally "reserved" by spoken language, is taken to corroborate the belief
that SLs *are* languages despite their different modality (i.e. visual-gestural
vs. oral-aural).
Besides, English, or any other spoken language was never threatened with doubts
regarding its linguistic identity, like sign language. Thus, any evidence from
neuroscience, or linguistic science, that the same "language center" active
during spoken languages is also active during sign languages, is regarded as a
further proof that SLs are "fully developed linguistic systems".
Also, we will have to appreciate --I think-- that this new study offers
cross-linguistic
evidence from Japanese SL. What this study proves is probably not news, but what
is news is that the evidence per se is based on the study of another SL, which
is really a strong indication that the initial point made by Klima/Bellugi,
Kimura, Neville, and others, *is* true for SLs other that ASL.

Regards,
Eleni

Eric Gumpert wrote:

> Alternately, if there were proof that during, say, the performance of spoken
> English, the visual cortex were activated--that would be further proof that
> English is a fully developed linguistic system.



--

Eleni Koutsomitopoulou, PhD Program in Computational Linguistics,
Georgetown University, koutsome at gusun.georgetown.edu

Check out my personal URL:
http://www.georgetown.edu/users/koutsome

_________________________________________________________________________

** tiny actions speak volumes **