intro linguistics neurolinguistics

• named after the French neurolinguist Paul Broca
• 1861: report on a patient called "Tan"
• great difficulties with producing speech
• comprehension relatively spared
• brain damage in the left frontal lobe
• speech production is controlled mainly by anterior portions (Broca´s area)

• named after the German neuolinguist Carl Wernicke
• 1874: report on two patients suffering from a different disorder
• great difficulties with understanding speech
• production of relatively fluent speech
• brain damage in the left temporal lobe
• speech comprehension is controlled mainly by posterior portions (Wernicke´s area)

• damage to Broca´s area
• having severe difficulties with speech production
• speech is slow, deliberate, effortful
• function words and grammatical endings are often missing
• agrammatical or non-fluent aphasia

• damage to Wernicke´s area
• having severe difficulties with speech comprehension
• speech is fluent, speed and intonation appear normal
• frequent use of very detailed descriptions (circumlocutions) and newly created words (neologisms)
• fluent aphasia

used in language assessment and the diagnostics of neurological language disorders esp. of aphasia