10.1: Introduction
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What is happening inside my head when I listen to a sentence? How do I process written words? This chapter will take a closer look on brain processes concerned with language comprehension. Dealing with natural language understanding, we distinguish between the neuroscientific and the psycholinguistic approach. As text understanding spreads through the broad field of cognitive psychology, linguistics, and neurosciences, our main focus will lay on the intersection of two latter, which is known as neurolinguistics.
Different brain areas need to be examined in order to find out how words and sentences are being processed. For long time scientist were restricted to draw conclusions from certain brain lesions to the functions of corresponding brain areas. During the last 40 years techniques for brain imaging and ERP-measurement have been established which allow for a more accurate identification of brain parts involved in language processing.
Scientific studies on these phenomena are generally divided into research on auditory and visual language comprehension; we will discuss both. Not to forget is that it is not enough to examine English: To understand language processing in general, we have to look at non-Indo-European and other language systems like sign language. But first of all we will be concerned with a rough localization of language in the brain.