>>> Michael Sylvester <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 09/13 1:47 PM
>> Some languages also seem to utilize right hemispheric function, >> for examples
>your Asian languages,Japanese and Arabic.
As a psycholinguist who specializes in Japanese, I'd have to disagree with this. I
have read nothing that suggests spoken Japanese is processed in the right hemisphere.
There have been some articles published that argue for Kanji (Japanese
phonomorphograms) being processed in the right hemisphere, but this is more
ethnocentric propaganda than anything else (i.e., the claims haven't withstood the
test of time or sophisticated imaging techniques).
>> Actually English may be one of the dullest languages-in terms
>> of intonation and emotive load.
Native speakers might perceive this to be the case, but intonation is actually
incredibly important in English. Indeed, there are many linguists and psycholinguists
who study nothing but the complexities of English intonation. What makes English
intonation seem less salient to many speakers is that it is not lexicalized (like tone
in a Chinese dialect, for example). English "tone" flows over whole clauses and
phrases, making it harder for the untrained ear to isolate and describe.
As for the original question regarding RH involvement in language processing, current
evidence suggests that the RH does quite a bit of inferencing and linking of prose, in
addition to processing some intonation and emotive cues. As an example, if I say:
I went to the store.
I bought some milk.
You probably assume that I bought the milk at the store, although I never said this
explicitly. Thank your RH (parietal area, I think) for that.
Morton Anne Gernsbacher (U Wisc. @ Madison) did a neat presentation about RH
involvement in prose processing at Psychonomics last year; she used fMRI to measure
the brain activity during different passages that did or did not encourage the
development of inferences.
I have also read about bilingual people who do a lot of translation having their
second language primarily distributed in the RH, but I couldn't give you an immediate
reference.
Off to go teach cognitive psych... Have a good day!
Kim
********************************
Kim Ainsworth-Darnell, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
Georgia State University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
