Language - Physiological and Neural Architecture of Language and Speech

Physiological and Neural Architecture of Language and Speech

Speaking is the default modality for language in all cultures. The production of spoken language depends on sophisticated capacities for controlling the lips, tongue and other components of the vocal apparatus, the ability to acoustically decode speech sounds, and the neurological apparatus required for acquiring and producing language. The study of the genetic bases for human language is still on a fairly basic level, and the only gene that has been positively implied in language production is FOXP2, which may cause a kind of congenital language disorder if affected by mutations.

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Famous quotes containing the words architecture, language and/or speech:

    And when his hours are numbered, and the world
    Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
    Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
    To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
    Built in an age, the mad wind’s night-work,
    The frolic architecture of the snow.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The world does not speak. Only we do. The world can, once we have programmed ourselves with a language, cause us to hold beliefs. But it cannot propose a language for us to speak. Only other human beings can do that.
    Richard Rorty (b. 1931)

    His speech is a burning fire;
    With his lips he travaileth;
    In his heart is a blind desire,
    In his eyes foreknowledge of death:
    He weaves, and is clothed with derision;
    Sows, and he shall not reap;
    His life is a watch or a vision
    Between a sleep and a sleep.
    —A.C. (Algernon Charles)