Introdungcing English language part 8: 'In this exciting new textbook, Louise Mullany and Peter Stockwell have provided a fresh and imaginative set of alternatives for teaching and learning a huge amount about the English language. The book allows tor creative and lateral approaches to developing an understanding of important linguistic concepts and, together with the thought-provoking activities, and accessible readings, guarantees there is something to stimulate every learner. | A7 28 INTRODUCTION KEY BASIC CONCEPTS suggested that the brain worked according to a principle of localisation with particular cognitive abilities located in particular regions. Today this seems to be somewhat overstated. Again on the basis of evidence from people with head injuries it seems that the functions of the two areas are not so clear cut and also that many language functions can be distributed across large areas of the brain s 100 billion neurons and 10 000 connections. Some people with left hemisphere injuries have even been observed to be able to learn to speak again by redistributing language processing into the right hemisphere. Brain function seems to be more plastic and adaptable than was once thought. Processing In terms of language processing we can differentiate two general approaches based on global or top-down strategies and particular or bottom-up strategies. The former includes the processes by which we make general sense of the world and can process for significance and coherence this is addressed in B7. At the particular level an area that has exercised psycholinguists is the question of how an individual stores their vocabulary their lexicon . For example it seems clear that our brains do not store lists of words and their meanings like a dictionary. In tests people who are shown one word say house are able to recognise other words from the same semantic domain windows doors or apartment shed or home family more quickly than words with no or little association. This suggests a network of connections rather than a straightforward filing system. Furthermore it would seem extraordinarily inefficient if we had separate lexical entries for every inflected and derived form of a word see A4 the lemma or basic form of a word say interest plus every one of its grammatical inflections interesting interested third person verb form interests plural interests interest as verb and as noun and also all its various derivations disinterest uninteresting .
