You will prepare and submit a term paper on Our Brain and Language Learning. Your paper should be a minimum of 1500 words in length. However, there are lucky ones, who use both hemispheres equally. The damages of the brain always affect the language production “certain types of brain damage can affect language production without actually eliminating language from the brain. A stroke that damages the muscles of the vocal apparatus may leave the abstract cognitive structure of language intact–as witnessed by the fact that right hemisphere stroke victims often understand the language perfectly well and write it perfectly with their right hand–although their speech may be slurred due to lack of muscle control. We have also seen that certain disorders involving the subcortex–the seat of involuntary emotional response–may have linguistic side effects” (Language and the brain).

The left hemisphere processes verbal, analytic and abstract information sequentially and logically. It is responsible for identifying contrasts and differences and for inductive thinking (imagining the whole picture using separate parts) and data analysis. Thus, when this hemisphere is damaged, the consequences are very negative as it is considered to be more important: “a left-hemisphere stroke often results in right-sided paralysis and a curiously extreme cautiousness on the part of the sufferer. It takes a lot of teaching and frequent encouragement to lead such a person through the steps of recovery” (5 Ways to Recover From a Left-Hemisphere Stroke). It identifies numbers and is responsible for remembering facts and dates. The left hemisphere is connected with our abilities to learn languages and mathematics. “In human beings, it is the left hemisphere that usually contains specialized language areas.&nbsp. While this holds true for 97% of right-handed people, about 19% of left-handed people have their language areas in the right hemisphere and as many as 68% of them have some language abilities in both the left and the right hemispheres” (Boeree, 2004). The right hemisphere is processing nonverbal, figurative and spatial information and the processing is happening simultaneously. It is considering the picture as a whole and separate elements as the parts of the whole, it is responsible for imagination, abilities to music and painting. “Damage to the right hemisphere of the brain leads to cognitive-communication problems, such as impaired memory, attention problems and poor reasoning. In many cases, the person with right brain damage is not aware of the problems that he or she is experiencing” (Right Hemisphere Brain Damage).