{"id":108700,"date":"2023-07-19T13:02:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-19T17:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=108700"},"modified":"2023-07-21T10:44:43","modified_gmt":"2023-07-21T14:44:43","slug":"is-language-left-or-right-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/is-language-left-or-right-brain\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Language Left or Right Brain? Why Both Hemispheres Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Is language left or right brain? What role does each hemisphere play in understanding language?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the popular caricature of the right hemisphere as \u201csilent,\u201d psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist contends that it plays a crucial role in understanding language. He discusses the vital roles that both the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/left-and-right-brain\/\">left brain and right brain<\/a> play in our use and interpretation of words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more to learn what we understand about language and the brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-language-and-the-brain\">Language and the Brain<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Is language left or right brain? McGilchrist explains that the matter of language and the brain isn&#8217;t quite black-and-white. By examining the effects of injuries to the right and left hemispheres, he argues that, though the left hemisphere grasps formal linguistic rules,<strong> only<\/strong> <strong>the right hemisphere grasps the implicit meaning that language conveys.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He notes that, when people suffer from right hemisphere damage (and therefore rely on their left hemisphere), they often speak sentences that are syntactically and grammatically flawless but nonsensical. In a similar vein, children that suffer right hemisphere injuries struggle to understand entire sentences, even when they know each of the individual words.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: By contrast, individuals that suffer left hemisphere brain damage often <a href=\"https:\/\/constanttherapyhealth.com\/brainwire\/a-guide-to-left-hemisphere-brain-damage\/#:~:text=Left%20hemisphere%20brain%20damage%20can,those%20skills%20relate%20to%20language\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">struggle to express grammatically coherent sentences<\/a> and, in the case of children, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2912693\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">often have difficulty retaining vocabulary<\/a>. However, experts note that our brain\u2019s <em>plasticity<\/em>\u2014that is, its ability to modify its structure to perform different functions\u2014makes it possible to <a href=\"https:\/\/greatspeech.com\/how-can-i-improve-my-speech-after-a-brain-injury\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">improve speech and language skills even after a traumatic brain injury.<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>McGilchrist concedes that the left hemisphere can understand <em>denotative <\/em>meaning; for example, it can understand that the word \u201cchair\u201d refers to a four-legged, inanimate object that we sit on. For this reason, the left hemisphere has a much larger vocabulary than the right hemisphere. But he reiterates that only the right hemisphere is able to understand the meaning of those terms <em>in context<\/em>. For example, only the right hemisphere understands that, when we call people \u201cearly birds,\u201d we aren\u2019t <em>literally <\/em>asserting that they\u2019re birds.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: Though denotative meaning is ubiquitous in language, <a href=\"https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/reference\/#FourMod\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">philosophers and linguists have struggled to understand <em>how<\/em> denotative meaning works<\/a>\u2014that is, how do specific terms come to refer to specific objects? There\u2019s no clear consensus as to the answer. For example, according to the descriptivist view, words refer because they\u2019re associated with descriptions of certain objects; the word \u201crabbit\u201d refers to rabbits, for example, because that\u2019s just how we use the word \u201crabbit.\u201d Other views, however, offer a more complicated picture; the intentionalist view, for instance, requires that we use words with a specific <em>intention <\/em>to refer to the object in mind\u2014as when a speaker means to identify a specific individual animal.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Likewise, McGilchrist asserts that <strong>only the right hemisphere can grasp metaphors<\/strong> because metaphors don\u2019t depend on the denotative meaning of words but rather on their <em>connotative <\/em>meaning. For instance, the meaning of being \u201cgreen with envy\u201d doesn\u2019t depend on the <em>color <\/em>green (the denotative meaning) but rather the association of green with jealousy (the connotative meaning).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The upshot, according to McGilchrist, is that the right hemisphere is crucial for understanding the world because we can\u2019t understand the world without metaphors. After all, many aspects of life\u2014such as beauty, love, and pain\u2014can\u2019t be described through denotative language alone. To understand and describe such phenomena, McGilchrist suggests we need to use metaphor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: If it <em>were <\/em>possible to understand the world without metaphor, we might expect languages that <em>don\u2019t <\/em>use metaphor to have developed. However, experts point out that <a href=\"https:\/\/ojs.unito.it\/index.php\/ricognizioni\/article\/view\/7097#:~:text=Metaphors%20are%20ubiquitous%20in%20natural,language%20without%20metaphors%20is%20known.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">all known natural languages use metaphors<\/a>. Indeed, metaphor has long played a crucial role in human communication, as evidenced by the <a href=\"http:\/\/websites.umich.edu\/~homeros\/Representations%20of%20Homer's%20Ideas\/Homeric%20Metaphors.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">richness of metaphor in Homer\u2019s epics<\/a>, the <em>Odyssey<\/em> and the <em>Iliad<\/em>, which were composed around the 7th century B.C.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is language left or right brain? What role does each hemisphere play in understanding language? Despite the popular caricature of the right hemisphere as \u201csilent,\u201d psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist contends that it plays a crucial role in understanding language. He discusses the vital roles that both the left brain and right brain play in our use and interpretation of words. Read more to learn what we understand about language and the brain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":32393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,160],"tags":[1106],"class_list":["post-108700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communication","category-science","tag-the-master-and-his-emissary","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Is Language Left or Right Brain? Why Both Hemispheres Matter - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Is language left or right brain? Iain McGilchrist explains that the matter of language and the brain isn&#039;t quite black-and-white. Learn more.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/is-language-left-or-right-brain\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Language Left or Right Brain? Why Both Hemispheres Matter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Is language left or right brain? Iain McGilchrist explains that the matter of language and the brain isn&#039;t quite black-and-white. Learn more.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/is-language-left-or-right-brain\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-07-19T17:02:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-07-21T14:44:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/alphabet-english-writing-letters-language.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elizabeth Whitworth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elizabeth Whitworth\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/is-language-left-or-right-brain\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/is-language-left-or-right-brain\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elizabeth Whitworth\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d2928cf6c11a69ced1491d6a5b74fb13\"},\"headline\":\"Is Language Left or Right Brain? 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