REFLECTING ON THE FOLLOWING QUESTION:

“TO WHAT EXTENT NEUROLINGUISTICS HELPS TO RECOGNIZE THE MEANING OF LANGAUGE COMPETENCE?”

By

Leidy Marcela Chacón Vargas

Neurolinguistics becomes a discipline through which the language process in our brain has been studied. The results of that search have brought lights in terms of the lateralization of the brain in two hemispheres, and the injuries related to it. So this discipline is concerned with investigations in language (spoken, signed or written) processes like comprehension, acquisition and production. Peng (1985) explains that Neurolinguistics is a fashionable inter-discipline because of its dual nature (neurology and linguistics),   which at the time allows it to explore and find connections between the brain functioning and the individuals’ linguistic behavior.  

On the one hand the localization of the language process has concrete results with discoveries like those carried out by Brocca and Wernicke in regards to certain brain language domain; however there is still the need to discover whether or not certain areas are involved in the course of language production. On the second hand, language pathology is another topic that Neurolinguistics is facing through the analysis of disorders and breakdowns like aphasia and dyslexia. The interesting fact of these investigations is the powerful reliability of the outcomes in terms of knowledge regarding the integration of areas such as: medicine, engineering, linguistics, psycholinguistics and others that have contributed in the performance of different roles like that one of being a teacher.

At this point, we as educators need to draw our attention to certain aspects, initially what is the conception that we handle about language.  Upon that conception we as teachers build our identity as well as our practices. Additionally, it is highly important to take advantage of the lights turned on by disciplines like Neurolinguistics in order to enrich our performance as educators in the heterogeneous contexts that we must face. It means being able to cope with the issues in language competence that shape our settings.   Of course, it is not an easy task due to the wide range of disadvantages (government policies, quality of education, lack of motivation, etc.) that prevent us to go further and figure out what is going on with our students’ abilities to perform appropriately as a response to the surrounded context; but it is and has to be a must for us as agents of change.

REFERENCE:

·         Peng, F. (1985). What is Neurolinguistics? Journal of Neurolinguistics.