Unit2BrainandLanguage..doc

English in Use 当前位置: 主页/ 网上教室/ 返回 English in Use Unit 2 Brain and Language?? By Antonio R. Damasio and Hanna Damasio About the authors:Antonio R. Damasio and Hanna Damasio are neuroscientists . They have been investigating the neural basis of language and memory for the past two decades. Antonio Damasio is professor and head of the Department of Neurology at the University of Iowa College of Medicine and adjunct professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego. He received his M.D. and doctorate from the University of Lisbon. Hanna Damasio also holds an M.D. from the University of Lisbon. She is professor of neurology and director of the??Laboratory for Neuroimaging and Human Neuroanatomy at the University of Iowa. ???? Text????? Vocabulary????? Language Points????? Discussion????? Translation? Writing ? [A large set of neural structure serves to represent concepts; a smaller set forms words and sentences. Between the two lies a crucial layer of mediation. Working in an investigation of neurobiological basis of human language, the authors try to answer questions about language that have been puzzling the human race for ages] 1. What do neuroscientists talk about when they talk about language? We talk, it seems, about the ability to use words (or signs, if our language is one of the sign languages of the deaf) and to combine them in sentences so that concepts in our minds can be transmitted to other people. We also consider the converse: how we apprehend words spoken by others and turn them into concepts in our own minds. 2. Language arose and persisted because it serves as a supremely efficient means of communication,? especially for abstract concepts. Try to explain feudalism or the operational principles of a satellite without using a single word. But language also performs what some scientists? call cognitive compression. It helps to categorize the world