Aphasia and Grammar Paper - Essay Example

The fact that we do not lose language by damage to our vocal chords is proof that language is a function that originates from the brain. Language is such an integral part of our lives yet we take words and their systematic arrangement in a sentence, grammar, for granted until we lose the ability to speak coherent grammatically correct sentences. This condition or disorder is called Aphasia. Damage to our vocal chords only limits our sounds and expression of the language but in the case of Aphasia the main centre in the brain that is linked with our linguistic ability gets damaged.

This can happen when our brain is unable to communicate within its cortex walls to send the right signals to the sensory organs effectively to create the sound, deliver the words in the right arrangement and form a coherent language? Simply put, Aphasia is a disorder, which damages the parts of the brain that are responsible for language, as we know it. Typically a person with Aphasia loses the ability to speak coherently or form grammatically coherent sentences. In other words, grammar is lost to the person with Aphasia.

The disorder can happen to anyone or any age group and is usually the result of a stroke or damage to the brain. Most people with Aphasia have been known to regain their language skills through intense therapy by way of reacquainting their brain with language skills. In that case, it leaves us with the following questions. When a person gets Aphasia 1. Where does the grammar go? 2. How is it able to resurface suddenly? This article hopes to examine Aphasia and find some answers to the above questions.

Where does the grammar go during Aphasia? To understand this point we need to go a bit in detail into the condition itself from a physiological point of view. Language is a function that is predominantly controlled by the left hemisphere of the brain. The left hemisphere as we all know controls the right side of the body and is also responsible for abstract reasoning and anything that involves a systematic progression. This linear model of progression is the basis of language, which is a composite of words and sounds.

Therefore a blow, stroke or damage to the left hemisphere can cause language disability or Aphasia. But the brain is a complex organ and this same language centre, and the consequent Aphasia is divided into two sections in the frontal and posterior regions of the left cerebral cortex, named after the neurologists who identified them. They are Broca’s Aphasia after Paul Broca and as Wernicke’s Aphasia after Carl Wernicke respectively. To explain in very simple terms, Broca’s region is the one that is involved with structural format or grammatical reasoning while Wernicke region is like a storehouse of words, like nouns and verb as well as phrases and composite words derived from familiar objects and have thus formed by association with Broca’s region.

Grammar is the structural format that is the basis of sentences, phrases and composite formations. Therefore it is important for Broca’s and Wernicke’s regions to connect. It has been found that they are intricately connected by some specific neurons. When this connection gets severed or if there is damage to either one of the regions, Aphasia occurs. Let us examine how this damage actually brings about the loss of grammar. In the case of Broca’