1 - Issues in neurolinguistics and linguistic aphasiology

Summary

The terms “neurolinguistics” and “linguistic aphasiology” are new ones, in use for a little over a decade. The areas of study to which they refer, the nature of language breakdown and the relationship between language and the brain, are much older than the term. Indeed, the study of language-–brain relationships can be seen as one aspect of the more general study of the relationship between mind and brain (or mind and body) which has occupied Western philosophy since its beginning. The scientific study of language–brain relationships began in the last half of the nineteenth century, and detailed descriptions of language disturbances after brain injury began to be published before the turn of this century. However, despite their distant and recent histories, these fields have recently developed new directions and vigor, and the new terms are appropriate and increasingly popular. An increasing number of scientists from the fields of linguistics, psychology, speech pathology, and neuroscience are beginning to make their primary study the questions of how language is represented and processed in the brain, and how it breaks down after brain injury. Thus, the subject has a life of its own, independent of the disciplines which contribute to it. Techniques and concepts from linguistics, psycholinguistics, artificial intelligence, neuroanatomy, and other sciences are increasingly being applied to what was traditionally a medical preserve, yielding new discoveries about language disorders and their neural determinants which in turn have led to more detailed understanding of language and the brain. In short, while still very dependent upon contributing areas, neurolinguistics and linguistic aphasiology are becoming viable, autonomous areas of study. The new terms both reflect and announce the development of these new areas of study.