After going through these readings, I was reminded of the psychology class that I took during my freshman year, during which I learned about how different parts of the brain serve different functions. Although I cannot recall many of the anatomical terms, I do remember learning about how language is closely tied to the function of the brain. Based on the readings, it seems like our brains are hardwired for language. Broca’s area controls the ability to speak, while Wernicke’s area controls the ability to comprehend speech. I thought it was interesting how damage to one area doesn’t necessarily affect the ability of the other, even though production and comprehension of speech are commonly viewed to go hand in hand with each other.
When I originally considered what the meaning of a word is, I used to think it was simple– it’s just whatever I associate with that particular word. However, learning about the distinction in semantics through sense and reference made me realize that language is not that simple. Sense is the meaning of the word in a language, and reference is what the word refers to in reality. Since I grew up speaking Korean, there are some words that my brain “speak” in Korean when I look at certain objects or people. On the other hand, this also made me realize how languages differ immensely from each other; there are many words in the Korean language that don’t have a corresponding English word. For advancing my language studies, I think the best method is to influence my brain to associate words directly with its Korean meaning, as opposed to understanding words in English and then translating them into Korean.
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