Cognitive Neuroscience of Language

Cognitive Neuroscience of Language provides an up-to-date, wide-ranging, and pedagogically practical survey of the most important developments in this exciting field. It guides students through all of the major areas of investigation, beginning with the fundamental aspects of brain structure and function and then following with key topics such as classic and progressive aphasia syndromes; speech perception and production; the meanings of object nouns, action verbs, and abstract words; the formulation and comprehension of complex expressions, including grammatically inflected words, complete sentences, and entire stories; and several other domains of neurolinguistic research, including reading and writing, sign language, and the bilingual brain. Drawing heavily on prominent theoretical models, the core chapters illustrate how such frameworks are supported, and sometimes challenged, by experiments employing diverse brain mapping techniques. This edition has been thoroughly updated throughout, and now includes a dedicated chapter on the neural substrates of bilingualism. Chapters have been revised to reflect the most salient developments in the field, and the book has undergone a thoughtful restructure to mirror course teaching. While the study of language can be challenging, the text has been written accessibly and requires no previous knowledge of either neuroscience or linguistics and includes definitions of technical terms and explanations of important principles from both disciplines along the way. Accompanied by online resources for students and instructors, it is an essential companion for graduate or upper-level undergraduate students.

David Kemmerer is a professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and the Department of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University. His research focuses on the neural substrates of semantic knowledge and has been featured in numerous articles and chapters as well as a book called Concepts in The Brain: The View from Cross-Linguistic Diversity.

Part I: Fundamentals 1. The Human Brain 2. Brain Mapping Methods; Part II: Aphasia 3. Classic Aphasia Syndromes 4. Primary Progressive Aphasia Syndromes; Part III: The Perception and Production of Speech 5. Speech Perception 6. Speech Production 7. Prosody; Part IV: The Meanings of Words 8. Object Nouns 9. Action Verbs 10. Abstract Words; Part V: Morphology, Syntax, and Discourse 11. Morphology 12. Sentence Production 13. Sentence Comprehension 14. Discourse; Part VI: Other Topics 15. Reading and Writing 16. Sign Language 17. The Bilingual Brain