References: <cjm6689.13.2F42579D at silver.sdsmt.edu>
<3htmjl$8tr at vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>
kspencer at s.psych.uiuc.edu (Kevin Spencer) writes:
>cjm6689 at silver.sdsmt.edu (CYNTHIA J. MONHEIM) writes:
>>Does anyone have an answer as to WHY language ability initially develops in
>>the left hemispere, without exception? The only answer I have been able to
>>extract from my professors is "because it's designed that way". So WHY is it
>>designed that way???? What special properties does the left side possess that
>>are not present in the right?
> The basic answer is that no one knows why. There are a number of theories,
> but no one really knows the basis of language lateralization. [cut]
The answer is probably to be found in theories about the evolution of
language and research into the cortical localization of aspects of
language. If one accepts the theory of the cortical motor control origin
of language (see Lieberman, Calvin, Kien, Studdert Kennedy and Allott on
varying aspects of this), the evidence for the essential unity of gesture
and language (McNeill and Kendon), the results of cortical stimulation
research (Ojemann and Mateer) showing the linkage between language and
motor control in the LH (also Doreen Kimura), plus the prevalence of
right-hand dominance controlled by the left hemisphere (MacNeilage and others),
the answer becomes rather straightforward. Language is left-lateralized
because it evolved from left-localized dominant motor control and functions
as essentially a motor (articulatory) activity. These issues were discussed
at the 1994 Berkeley meeting of the Language Origins Society.
Robin Allott email: rmallott at percep.demon.co.uk
