Language processing refers to the way human beings use words to communicate ideas and feelings, and how such communications are processed and understood. Thus it is how the brain creates and understands language. Most recent theories consider that this process is carried out entirely by and inside the brain.
This is considered one of the most characteristic abilities of the human species - perhaps the most characteristic. However very little is known about it and there is huge scope for research on it.
Most of the knowledge acquired to date on the subject has come from patients who have suffered some type of significant head injury, whether external (wounds, bullets) or internal (strokes, tumors, degenerative diseases).
Studies have shown that most of the language processing functions are carried out in the cerebral cortex. The essential function of the cortical language areas is symbolic representation. Even though language exists in different forms, all of them are based on symbolic representation.
Read more about Language Processing: Neural Basis For Language, Wernicke's Area, Broca's Area, Arcuate Fasciculus, Cortical Thickness and Verbal Fluency, Aphasia
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words.... Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)