Brain's Modularity and Aphasias
Imagine Apple, which is a leading technology factory. In Apple, there are different divisions in which employees work. Software management, design, storage, and packaging are some of these divisions. Each division has its responsibilities. While the software and development part focuses on back-end development, programming, of Apple products, the division responsible for design emphasizes the creative aspects of these products. The modularity of Apple factories makes it easier to handle the tasks effectively. Similar to a factory, in our case, which is Apple, the human brain is also modular. There are two hemispheres responsible for different kinds of actions. In linguistics, it is asserted that the left hemisphere is responsible for language acquisition.
Aphasia
Before starting, we should get ourselves acquaint with "aphasia's" meaning. It basically means language disorders caused by brain damage. We are taught that investigations of people suffering from aphasia led linguistics to discover the brain's modularity and lateralization. Broca's and Wernicke's aphasias are the disorders that can be considered as proof.
Broca's Aphasia
National Aphasia Association (n.d.) indicates that non-fluent and expressive aphasia are alternative terms to Broca's Aphasia. The foundation further states that the patients suffering from Broca's Aphasia can maintain their language comprehension while facing problems in speaking. In this type of aphasia, the left hemisphere's frontal lobe is damaged. As a result, the patient cannot give a fluent speech. His/her utterances generally consist of three or four words and include grammar mistakes and mispronunciation of words. In other words, it is a syntactic disorder. One good thing about the Broca's Aphasia is that it can be treated to an extent, and critical progress in the fluency of speech may be seen.
Wernicke's Aphasia
Wernicke's Aphasia differs from Broca's Aphasia in terms of the place that is damaged, problems observed in the patient's speech, and treatment. The damaged part of the left hemisphere is the back of the frontal lobe. As a result of this damage, semantic problems are seen in the patients. Their speech is not coherent and logical. They do not have any issues related to fluency or directly associated with syntax compared to Broca's Aphasia. Therefore, Wernicke's Aphasia is not a syntactic disorder but a semantic one. Treatment of Wernicke's Aphasia is harder than that of Broca's Aphasia.
Result
These aphasias show that damage to the left hemisphere of the brain results in language disorders. When looked into the damages to the right hemisphere, no language disorder is observed.
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