where in the brain is nonliteral language?€¦ · in the brain differently from newly created...

Where in the BrainIs Nonliteral Language?

Diana Van Lancker SidtisNathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research

New York University

This review examines brain processing of nonliteral expressions that are familiar inform and meaning to the native speaker, such as idioms, proverbs, swearing, andspeech formulas. The properties of stereotyped form and conventional meaning dis-tinguish nonliteral utterances from novel expressions. An historical overview of pre-served “automatic” speech in aphasia and impaired nonpropositional speech in otherneurological diseases suggests that these kinds of language are stored and processedin the brain differently from newly created language. For production, lesion studiesand other neurobehavioral observations associate nonliteral expressions with righthemisphere and subcortical structures. Comprehension studies implicate the righthemisphere. Although the entire brain is required for optimal performance, a righthemisphere—subcortical circuit may be important for processing of nonliteral ex-pressions. A dual process model comprised of a holistic mode for nonliteral expres-sions and a compositional mode for novel language, drawing on disparate neurologi-cal structures but continuously in interplay, is proposed.

The study of nonliteral language can be approached from many directions. Thisvolume of Metaphor and Symbol is focused on how and where in the brain the vari-ous types of nonliteral language are stored and processed. Even in this more re-stricted domain, the protean phenomenon of nonliteral language can be viewed indifferent shapes. This article, therefore, begins with a definition and characteriza-tion of nonliteral language as a foundation for the rest of the article. This representsonly one perspective on nonliteral language, a perspective that lends itself well toaddressing neurolinguistic questions.

METAPHOR AND SYMBOL, 21(4), 213–244Copyright © 2006, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Correspondence should be addressed to Diana Van Lancker Sidtis, Department of Speech-Lan-guage Pathology and Audiology, Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, New York Univer-sity, 719 Broadway, Suite 200, New York, NY 10003. E-mail: [email protected]

As mentioned in the introduction to this volume, a useful, broad definition char-acterizes nonliteral language as “what we say is not what we intend to convey.”This presupposes that during the utterance of a nonliteral expression, the regular,routine associations of words to meanings and grammar in the language are sus-pended, inoperative, or replaced by other, very different rules, associations, or con-ventions. The ubiquity and social importance of nonliteral expressions are nowwell accepted (Aijmer, 1996; Bolinger, 1975, 1977; Cermák, 1994; Gallahorn,1971; Jay, 1992; Jespersen, 1933; Lyons, 1968; Mieder, 1984; Pawley & Syder,1983; Schegloff, 1988; Tannen, 1989; Wray & Perkins, 2000), but formulaic lan-guage remains to be well incorporated into models of language (Chafe, 1968; Fill-more, 1979; Fillmore, Kay, & O’Connor, 1988; Katz,1973; Nunberg, Sag, &Wasow, 1994; Peters, 1983; Van Lancker, 2001a, 2001b; Weinreich, 1969). Howpeople communicate a meaning that is different from what they are apparently say-ing remains a challenging topic.

DELINEATION OF TOPIC

Figurative, metaphoric, and nonliteral language covers a very large domain. Thisreview is concerned with known, or familiar, nonliteral language, such as idioms,proverbs, sayings, slang, speech formulas, and the like, with very little to say aboutnovel metaphoric and figurative language, the kind that is newly created and ap-pears, not only in daily speech, but also in literature and poetry. To approach thestudy of cerebral processing of familiar nonliteral language, it is useful to considerboth the form and content of each expression. One way of talking about this is toidentify two components: stereotyped form and conventionalized meanings. Inthis approach, the focus is on nonliteral language comprising (more or less) fixedexpressions—expressions that are known and recognized as familiar by the nativespeaker.

FORM AND MEANING IN FORMULAIC EXPRESSIONS

Talking about stereotyped form leads to description of relatively straightforwardconstituent surface properties. Speech formulas, idioms, sayings, proverbs, and soon have certain words that appear in a certain order, and usually prosodic shape isrestricted to one or a few possibilities. The expression “No man is an island,” forexample, requires precisely those words in exactly that order to yield the recogniz-able, familiar expression, and the main stress is on the first syllable of island. Theacoustics of prosody figure importantly into the stereotyped form of the utterance:pitch height and contours, word lengths, intensity, and voice quality all contribute

214 VAN LANCKER SIDTIS

to the naturalness of the nonliteral utterance (Lieberman, 1963; Van Lancker, Can-ter, & Terbeek, 1981). Even the briefest utterance, utilizing prosody to cue irony(Kreuz & Roberts, 1995), can signal a meaning that is opposite to the standard lexi-cal meaning: the response, “right,” to the comment “That was a great movie,” givenwith low, falling intonation and creaky, pharyngealized voice quality, indicates anegative opinion of the movie. The stereotyped form of nonliteral utterances canbe specified, quantified, and described in detail (the potential for flexibility will bediscussed later). Questions about the status or integrity of this stereotyped or ca-nonical form in speakers’ competence for formulaic expressions can be examined.The notions of stereotyped form, as in “I met someone” (intoned on a lower pitchand spoken with light voice quality), and conventionalized meaning (as in “Theremay be a new significant other in my life”), serve as vehicles for study of brain pro-cessing of nonliteral language.

Conventionalized meanings in formulaic expressions are more elusive, as isusually the case for semantics, but many properties that distinguish literal fromnonliteral expressions can be described. The meanings of nonliteral expressionstypically involve a conflation of social, political (in the sense of relations betweenpersons), contextual, attitudinal, and emotional factors (Bell & Healey, 1992; VanLancker Sidtis & Rallon, 2004; Wray, 2002). The majority of nonliteral expres-sions fit this description. Take, for example, the comment “It’s a small world.” Themeaning of this expression is more intricate than a comparable literal expression,say, “It’s a small tree.” For this nonliteral expression to be used successfully, agrouping of unique and interactive features are required: a chance meeting of mu-tually acquainted persons at a location where such a meeting would not be ex-pected, the affect of surprise and perhaps delight, and so on. The literal counterpartis simply that a tree is not as large as other trees.

Affect, attitude, social and political implications, and contextual dependencieshave the capacity to be neutral in the typical literal expression. Of course, these ele-ments can be added, by prosody and additional lexical items—for example, “For-tunately, it is a small tree.” But these features inhere in most nonliteral expressions,in part because their manner of conveying meaning is different from literal expres-sions. A survey of typical nonliteral expressions, such as “While the cat’s away, themice will play,” “He was skating on thin ice,” “Break a leg,” “Get a grip,” “Take iteasy,” or “Shut up,” consistently supports the notion of complex, conventionalizedmeanings laden with connotations contained in the expression as a whole. In con-trast, the literal expression is better characterized as an aggregate of concatenated,lexical meanings, which may or may not contain affective and attitudinal connota-tions. Conventional (complex) meaning is one of the characteristics that distin-guishes nonliteral from literal language in communicative function, and that, as isdiscussed in the rest of this article, forms a basis for distinctive neurologicalprocessing.

NONLITERAL LANGUAGE 215

FLEXIBILITY OF FIXED EXPRESSIONS

It is well known that the stereotyped form of many or most nonliteral expressions isconsiderably flexible. Too many studies addressing questions about stereotypedform of nonliteral expressions have been published to review them all here (seeVan Lancker Sidtis, 2004a). This topic has been amply explored in the field of idi-oms, utilizing the notions of degrees of frozenness, noncompositionality, opaque-ness, and so on, in attempts to lay out a hierarchy whereby some idiomatic shapesare more malleable or carry more lexical weight in the minds of speakers than oth-ers (e.g., Burt, 1992; Cutting & Bock, 1997; Gibbs, 1980; Gibbs, Nayak, Bolton, &Keppel, 1989; Peterson, Burgess, Dell, & Eberhard, 2001; Titone & Connine,1994, 1999). Although there is no question that relative flexibility can be demon-strated in experimental studies for different groupings of idioms utilizing a varietyof performance tasks, the notion of stereotyped form remains viable, in the sensethat idioms have a canonical shape that speakers recognize (Horowitz & Manelis,1973; Osgood & Housain, 1974; Pickens & Pollio, 1979; Sprenger, 2003; Swinney& Cutler, 1979).

Native speaker knowledge of fixed expressions appears in various forms. Suchknowledge is reflected in the idiom effect in word association studies, which meansthat consistent performance (in the specific words associated) for some words canbest be explained by proposing that the speakers know certain phrases (Clark,1970). Idiom and proverb completion tasks are often used in neurological, psychi-atric, psychological, and language testing (Andreasen, 1977; Dilsaver, 1990;Goodglass & Kaplan, 1972; Strub & Black, 1985). These tests are based on a gen-erally held assumption that it is normal to know the form and meaning of numerousnonliteral expressions, especially idioms and proverbs. However, only modest ef-forts to quantify general knowledge of proverb meanings have been undertaken(Gorham, 1956; see Delis, Kramer, Kaplan, & Ober, 2000; Van Lancker, 1990).

Recently, native speakers’knowledge of idioms, proverbs, and speech formulaswas directly tested. Participants identified missing words from a randomly pre-sented written array of these expressions, and, in a second condition, judgedwhether an expression was novel or familiar (Figure 1a). These results supportedthe notion of known canonical forms for nonliteral expressions. Survey partici-pants recognized 91% of the nonliteral and 66% of the literal expressions. Further,there was significantly greater agreement on the missing word (recall task) in thenonliteral (76%) than in the literal expressions (32%; Van Lancker Sidtis & Rallon,2004; see Figure 1b). The finding that a random sample of native speakers demon-strates competence in recognizing a random sample of formulaic expressions is es-pecially notable, considering the very large numbers of these expressions.

Storage capacity in the native speaker is apparently very high for fixed expres-sions (Bolinger, 1976; Fillmore, 1979; Harris, 1994; Jackendoff, 1995), as sug-gested by recent corpus studies (e.g., Altenberg, 1998; Arnaud & Moon, 1993;


Moon, 1998a, 1998b; Sinclair, 1987), in which no upper limit to the number hasbeen identified. It is likely that memory capacity in language processing has beenunderestimated (Harris, 1994). From the perspective that formulaic utterances arestored and processed with stereotyped form and conventional meanings, the searchfor generative rules underlying their structure, although possible, is not pertinent totheir status in the speaker’s competence. It is possible, because all fixed expres-sions can receive grammatical operations, depending on communicative need and


FIGURE 1a Sample of survey study showing recognition and recall tasks for formulaic andnovel expressions. Participants circled “F” or “N” in the recognition task, and filled in a word inthe recall task. Tasks were always presented in this order.

FIGURE 1b Graph of results of survey of speakers’ knowledge of formulaic expressionsfrom results on a recall (dotted bar) task, for which participants filled in a missing word, and arecognition (dark bar) task, for which participants identified each utterance as formulaic ornovel.

context. Yet their unitary nature remains intact. If I were standing with another na-tive speaker of English before a field of destroyed cows and sheep in England fol-lowing the devastating measures taken to combat mad cow disease, I could say“The bucket was certainly kicked here” and be perfectly understood.

Speakers’knowledge of conventionalized meanings of nonliteral expressions ismore difficult to verify, but considerable work has been published probing thisquestion in normal adults (e.g., Cacciari & Tabossi, 1993), child language acquisi-tion (Nippold & Duthie, 2003), child language disorders (e.g., Kerbel & Grunwell,1998; Qualls, Lantz, Pietrzyk, Blood, & Hammer, 2004), and in second languagelearning (e.g., Bortfeld, 2003). Although inconsistencies in meaning attributiondoubtless occur across native adult speakers, approximate common knowledge ofmeanings of familiar nonliteral meanings is generally assumed.

Despite local controversies, there is considerable reason to believe that the largeset of fixed, nonliteral, nonpropositional expressions under discussion here have aspecial status in linguistic competence; they occur both as fixed and as flexible intheir surface shape, but they have an identifiable canonical form; and their stereo-typed form and conventional meanings are known to the native speaker. The focusof this review is on clinical and experiment evidence leading to proposals aboutwhere and how in the adult brain nonliteral language, as characterized, is storedand processed.

NONPROPOSITIONAL SPEECH

The study of brain processing of nonliteral expressions began with the notion ofautomatic or nonpropositional speech, as distinguished from propositionalspeech (Hughlings Jackson, 1874/1932). In the times of these discussions, andfor the next 100 years, the left hemisphere (LH) was believed to dominate all oflanguage function, but Hughlings Jackson proposed that the intact right hemi-sphere (RH) was capable of “the automatic reproduction of movements ofwords” (p. 133). He spoke of emotional speech, including greetings, “simple andcompound interjections” such as “God bless my life,” exclamations, oaths, and“well organized conventional expressions” such as “Not at all” (p. 133 in Taylor,1932). MacDonald Critchley (see 1970 for collected writings), the influentialBritish neurologist born in 1900, and Luria (1981), the widely admired Russianneuropsychologist, embraced and promoted Hughlings Jackson’s views of apha-sic speech.

Since then, aphasiologists, neurologists, and speech pathologists describingclinical syndromes of aphasia invariably mention the universal phenomenon ofcertain kinds of preserved speech in moderate or severe aphasia. Across authors, asimilar list of utterances is provided (e.g., Benson, 1979; Espir & Rose, 1970;Kriendler & Fradis, 1968; Van Lancker, 1988, 1993). The resiliency of the notionof preserved automatic speech can hardly be exaggerated.


Hughlings Jackson’s (1874/1932) notion of preserved automatic, inferior, oremotional speech has evolved to encompass a broader range of utterance types, asreported by clinical observations, and to be viewed from a different perspective.The residual speech observed in aphasia—exclamations, swearing, proper nouns,speech formulas, nursery rhymes, prayers, recited material, counting from 1–10,and so on—is best described as configurational and unitary, rather than formed ofpermutable lexical items (Van Lancker, 1973, 1988, 1993). The influence ofchunking in memory processes for speech performance is well established (Simon,1974; Zhang & Simon, 1985). These utterances are often used to communicate,obviating the value of the rubric automatic. Other kinds of utterances have come tobe recognized as preserved in aphasic speech, as the understanding of formulaiclanguage has grown. Clinical studies reveal that great variability in utterances ex-ists across individual speakers. This becomes understandable, considering that es-timates of nonpropositional expressions in English approach tens or hundreds ofthousands (Fillmore, 1979; Jackendoff, 1995; Weinreich, 1969). This variabilitymay have contributed to a view of preserved utterances as idiosyncratic, ratherthan forming a coherent class of nonpropositional language.

Preserved utterances in aphasia are generally described as having normal-sounding articulation and varieties of intonation contours, spoken with prosodyserving the communicative intent. Types of utterances are idioms (“He’s turningover a new leaf”), proverbs (“Rome wasn’t built in a day”), slang (“Get with it”),clichés (“The pursuit of happiness“), indirect requests (“It’s getting late“), conven-tional expressions (“As a matter of fact”), expletives (“God damn it”), memorizedphrases (“I pledge allegiance … ”), serial speech (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), pause-fillers(“well”), sentence stems (“I think”), back-channels (“um”), and familiar propernouns (Blanken, Wallesch & Papagno, 1990; Code, 1989; Van Lancker Sidtis &Postman, 2006). These categories have been observed in aphasic speech, contrast-ing in competence with novel utterances, which are relatively impaired. A classicexample is represented by the aphasic patient who often said “son of a bitch” withnormal articulation and prosody, but was unable to use the word son to refer to hismale offspring. Although short utterances are the most common in aphasia, longerforms also occur (Buckingham, Avakian-Whitaker & Whitaker, 1975; Critchley,1970; Hughlings Jackson, 1874/1932; Peña-Casanova, Bertran-Serra, Serra, &Bori, 2002; Van Lancker Sidtis, 2001). A dissociation between automatic andpropositional competence has also been reported for writing (Simernitskaya,1974). These observations, combined with the developing evidence that modes ofprocessing distinguish the cerebral hemispheres, have supported the notion thatnonpropositional utterances are stored and processed differently in the brain fromnovel language.

Terminology for identifying and classifying nonpropositional utterance typesremains somewhat chaotic (see Wray, 2002). Numerous subsets appear to make upa continuum from novel to fixed (Van Lancker, 1988; Van Lancker Sidtis, 2004a).In this review, nonpropositional is used interchangeably with formulaic language,


primarily to distinguish all the various categories from newly created, novel, orpropositional language.

PRODUCTION OF NONLITERAL UTTERANCESIN NEUROLOGICAL CONDITIONS

The anecdotal evidence describing preserved automatic speech in aphasia was firstsystematically evaluated and confirmed by Code (1982). Using survey methods,Code (1982, 1987, 1989) and Blanken (1991; Blanken & Marini, 1997) docu-mented recurrent utterances in chronic, severely aphasic persons. Whether in Brit-ish English or German patients, similar utterance types were observed: swearwords, interjections, greetings, numbers, sentence stems, and proper nouns. Thisstudy took automatic speech from anecdote to descriptive research status. Confir-mation using a non-Indoeuropean language described similar utterances in aphasicCantonese speakers (Chung, Code, & Ball, 2004). These observations have led tothe notion that formulaic expressions have special evolutionary significance, con-stituting the beginnings of human speech, and now woven into the highly evolvedcomplex language function (Code, 2005), an idea previously advanced by Jaynes(1976).

Lum and Ellis (1994) conducted the first group study of the clinical observa-tions. Propositional and nonpropositional tasks were matched and compared inaphasic patients. Counting was compared to identifying numbers; naming pictureswith cues from familiar nonliteral expressions (e.g., “Don’t beat around theBUSH”) was matched with naming pictures using novel phrase cues (“Don’t digbehind the BUSH”); and repetition of well known phrases was compared withnovel expressions. Better performance on nonpropositional tasks for number pro-duction and picture naming was found; the advantage for phrase repetition wasless notable. Van Lancker and Bella (1996) reported similar results in aphasic pa-tients comparing matched propositional and nonpropositional expressions, withbetter nonpropositional ability for sentence completion than repetition. It is inter-esting that careful phonetic analysis of the contrasting repetition tasks did not re-veal differences in articulatory skill between the two tasks. This suggested that themechanisms differentiating propositional and nonpropositional speech modes oc-cur most saliently in spontaneous speech. This observation relates directly toHughlings Jackson’s (1874/1932) original distinction between voluntary and in-voluntary (i.e., automatic) utterances in aphasic speech. Differential motor speechcompetencies for spontaneous and repeated speech are reviewed and described inKempler and Van Lancker (2002).

A recent examination of the proportion of formulaic expressions in the sponta-neous speech of stroke patients was conducted using transcribed interviews of fiveLH damaged, five RH damaged, and five age- and education-matched normal–


control participants. Nonliteral language categories, which were selected based onobservations in neurological disorders, were (a) idioms (e.g., “lost my train ofthought”); (b) conventional expressions (e.g., “as a matter of fact”); (c) conversa-tional formulaic expressions (e.g., “first of all”); (d) expletives (e.g., “damn”); (e)sentence stems (e.g., “I guess”); (f) discourse particles (e.g., “well”); (g) pause fill-ers (e.g., “uh”); (h) familiar proper nouns (those personally known to the speaker)and (i) numerals (Van Lancker & Postman, 2006). Patients with RH damage hadsignificantly fewer words (16%) making up formulaic expressions than normal(24%) or LH damaged patients (29%), and LH damaged patients had significantlymore than the other groups (Figure 2a). To compare incidence subsets in the threegroups, categories 1–4 were combined as formulaic expressions, as shown (Figure2b; no expletives occurred in this sample.) One observes relatively fewer propernouns in the LH group, supporting the hypothesis of LH specialization for produc-tion for this category.

Another analysis on spontaneous speech was conducted using videotaped clini-cal sessions of a 50-year-old right-handed male, with 14 years of education and noprior psychiatric or neurologic history, who suffered a RH stroke. Percentage ofwords compromising formulaic expressions in extended discourse (1,249 words ofspontaneous speech) was 15.7%, a result that corresponded well to results from theRH patients (16.5%) in the group study previously discussed (Van Lancker Sidtis,Canterucci, & Postman, 2006).

Preserved formulaic language in quantity was observed in a person with trans-cortical sensory aphasia. His spontaneous speech consisted of over 90% formulaic


FIGURE 2a Proportions of words in formulaic and novel expressions in LH and RH patientsand a normal-control group.

expressions (Van Lancker Sidtis, 2001). A similar phenomenon, referred to in anoverview of transcortical aphasia as “coined expressions,” is mentioned by Berthier(1999; p. 76). Successful idiom completion was seen in this and other cases oftranscortical sensory aphasia due to focal, cortical lesions (Nakagawa et al. 1993;Whitaker; 1976). Preserved idiom, proverb, and other formulaic completion hasbeen observed in brain damage that encircles speech centers in the LH (isolation ofthe speech area; Geschwind, Quadfasel, & Segarra, 1968). Repeated sentence stemswere observed in an aphasic speaker by Buckingham et al. (1975). Ellis, Young, andCritchley (1989) described an individual who experienced “intrusive inner” (p. 581)automatic speech following bilateral brain injury. Another patient developed an in-trusive syllable in his speech immediately following extensive and lengthy spinalsurgery, the result of a small intraoperative stroke. The speech deficit occurred morefrequently (56% of words) on automatic (counting, reciting) than propositional(spontaneous) speech (10% of words; Van Lancker, Bogen, & Canter, 1983; see Ta-ble 1). These various observations suggest that different brain mechanisms underlienonpropositional and propositional language processing, and that brain damage af-fects these two modes differentially.

Dramatic support of a RH role in nonpropositional speech production arises outof an interview by N. Geschwind with a left hemispherectomized adult (Smith,1966; Smith & Burklund, 1966). This right-handed individual developed normallyuntil afflicted by an infiltrating brain tumor in his left cerebral hemisphere. Al-though profoundly aphasic following neurosurgical treatment, this patient pro-


FIGURE 2b Distribution of subsets of formulaic expressions in LH, RH, and normal–controlparticipants. Included are familiar proper nouns (PNs), sentence stems, numerals, pause fillers(“um,” “uh”), discourse elements (“well,” “oh”) and speech formulas (idioms, conventional,and formulaic expressions).

duced well-articulated expletives (“God dammit”), sentence stems (“I can’t”), anddiscourse elements (“well ”, “oh boy”; Van Lancker & Cummings, 1999; see Table2), verbal items similar to those observed in severe aphasia. In another case report,loss of ability to produce nonpropositional speech, such as the Lord’s prayer,Pledge of Allegiance, and produce the familiar song “Happy Birthday” was associ-ated with greater atrophy of right than left frontal and temporal cortex (Ghacibeh& Heilman, 2003).

ROLE OF RIGHT HEMISPHERE IN PRODUCTION

It has remained controversial whether or not, in the typical case of aphasic residualutterances following LH damage, the intact RH is contributing significantly tothese expressions (Code, 1997). Many people have been reluctant to attribute anyspeaking function to the RH. However, depictions of RH function derived fromother neuroscientific disciplines permit at least a possibility that the stereotypedform and conventional meanings of nonliteral language might be compatible withRH competencies. Pattern recognition and comprehension of several types of stim-uli, such as faces, chords, complex pitch, graphic images, and voices, has been de-scribed as superior in the normal RH or significantly deficient in the impaired RH(Bradshaw & Nettleton, 1983; Gordon, 1970; Sidtis, 1980; Van Lancker, 1997;Van Lancker, Cummings, Kreiman, & Dobkin, 1988). The RH has been generallydescribed as more adept at processing configurational stimuli. Although thesefindings pertain more specifically to comprehension processes (discussed later),this interpretation of RH processing ability also supports the possibility of RH


TABLE 1Excerpts of Spontaneous Speech from a Subject With a Motor SpeechDisorder Affecting Nonpropositional More Than Propositional Speech

Nonpropositional Propositional

Fourzis, sixsis, sevenzis, eightsis, ninezis, ten,Elevenz, twelvezis, thirteenz, forteenz, fifteenz.Violetsis are bluezis. Rosezis are redzis and

sugarzis is sweetsiz and sozis are youzis.And to the Republic for which it standzis. One

nation individualzis for libertyzis andjusticesis for allzis.

Yazsis.

But I think that I get … I think I dizis betterwhen I concentratesis onzis it.

She was with them for I think about 2 or 3yearzis. But she has not worked for quite afew yearzis. Course I’ve been sicksis now for4 yearzis.

So naturally she could not worksis. Andfortunatelyzis, I get a little small veteran’scompensation, and a … with social security,that sort of think and some investments Ihave, we get along beautiful. We have neverhad no financial problems at all.

storage and retrieval of the stereotyped form of formulaic utterances. Other find-ings suggest a specialized RH predilection for the conventional meanings ofnonliteral language. In normal individuals, word recognition in the RH appears torelate more readily to real world context than to linguistic features (Drews, 1987).Deficits in involving social context, emotional meanings, musical connotations,and various facets of pragmatic communication have been associated with RHdamage (Brownell & Joanette, 1993; Foldi, Cicone, & Gardner, 1983; Gardner,Silverman, Denes, Semenza, & Rosenthal, 1977; Kaplan, Brownell, Jacobs, &Gardner, 1990; Rehak, Kaplan, & Gardner, 1992; Winner & Gardner, 1977). Asdiscussed, these kinds of social, attitudinal, and emotional connotations featureimportantly in the meanings of nonliteral expressions.

Questions about the role of the RH in the production of residual aphasic speech,and in nonliteral language processing in particular, have been addressed in variousways. This question has immense clinical importance, as it addresses mechanismsof language recovery (Gainotti, 1993). The Smith and Burkland (1966) patient pre-viously described, whose preserved speech could only arise from an intact RH,presents a most compelling case. RH involvement in residual speech is also


TABLE 2Residual Utterances in a Profoundly Aphasic Adult

Left-Hemispherectomized Subject. Swearing, DiscourseElements/Pause Fillers (Well, Um), and Sentence Stems (I Can’t)

Are Clearly in Evidence in His Speech.

Time (Minutes) Expletives Discourse Elements/Fillers Sentence Initials Numerals

Goddammit um I can’t oneGoddammit boy That’s a threewell, no

1 Goddammit welluhnoeh

2 God—- ahGoddammit uhnahah

3 ummm, uhoh,yesshit no

4 Goddammit well, yes I don’tah I couldn’tohGoddammit ah

5 Goddammit

suggested by speech changes in aphasic patients after temporary RH inactivationby intracarotid amobarbital injection (Czopf, 1981; Kinsbourne, 1971) or diminu-tion of residual speech brought about by a new stroke to the previously intact RH(Cummings, Benson, Walsh, & Levine, 1979; Mohr & Levine, 1979). Further ad-dressing the question of which cerebral hemisphere might underlie automaticspeech, Graves & Landis (1985) measured mouth openings in aphasic speech dur-ing production of automatic and propositional utterances. Despite right side weak-ness in some of the patients, greater right-sided mouth openings were measured forspontaneous speech, repetition, and word list generation; serial speech and singingwere associated with greater openings on the left side of the mouth. As the neuro-logical control of movement is contralateral (the RH in large part controls the leftside of the face and body, and the LH controls the right side of face and body), thisprovided evidence for a dissociation in hemispheric control for propositional ver-sus automatic speech.

EVIDENCE FOR BASAL GANGLIA INVOLVEMENTIN PRODUCTION

Other evidence leads to the notion that swearing, as a preeminent subset of auto-matic speech in aphasia and formulaic speech in normal language use, is producedby neural mechanisms other than those underlying other speech behaviors. Inci-dents of swearing were reported in a coma patient (Schiff, Ribary, Plum, & Llinas,1999). Several observations implicate the basal ganglia as the neurological site ofaction for some subsets of nonliteral language. The most well known emanatesfrom the presentation of coprolalia (Greek for “foul speaking”) in Gilles de laTourette syndrome (Shapiro, Shapiro, Bruun, & Sweet, 1983). Cross-linguisticstudies reveal similarity in the vocalizations—swearing and taboo words—in anylanguage reported (see complete listing in Van Lancker & Cummings, 1999). Cur-rent opinion regarding the site of brain damage in Gilles de la Tourette syndromeimplicates the basal ganglia (Balthasar, 1957; Cummings, 1993; Eidelberg et al.,1997; Gates et al., 2004; Georgiou, Bradshaw, Phillips, Bradshaw, & Chiu, 1995;Nauta, 1982; Palumbo, Maughan, & Kurlan, 1997; Regeur, Pakkenberg, Fog, &Pakkenberg, 1986; Singer, 1997).

A related observation comes from intrasurgical procedures involving deepstimulation in the brain. In stereotaxic surgery, in which brain areas are first probedusing electrodes, various behaviors are elicited. This procedure is undertaken todetermine the most useful site of surgical intervention for relief of motor disorders.Using deep stereotaxic electrical stimulation of deep brain structures, such asputamen and globus pallidus, Schaltenbrand (1965) elicited stereotyped compul-sory utterances, such as “thank you” (see also Schaltenbrand & Woolsey, 1964).


Schaltenbrand likened this speech behavior to observations in aphasic patients de-scribed by Hughlings Jackson (1874/1932).

Lesions studies have associated basal ganglia damage with specific loss of pro-duction of some types of nonpropositional speech. One reported loss of ability torecite familiar verses, serial speech, singing, recited rhymes, overused phrases inspontaneous speech, and swearing following a right basal ganglia lesion, despitepreserved propositional speech (Speedie, Wertman, T’air, & Heilman, 1993). An-other described a patient with subcortical injury, who reported using fewer conver-sational expressions such as greetings and other speech formulas in daily conversa-tion, and using less swearing than in preinjury communication (Van LanckerSidtis, Pachana, Cummings, & Sidtis, 2006). Analysis of her spontaneous speechobtained in interviews and conversations revealed that 11% of the words in the1,127 word corpus constituted formulaic expressions (Van Lancker Sidtis,Canterucci, & Postman, 2006), a number considerably lower than those obtainedin other similarly derived incidence counts (Van Lancker Sidtis et al., 2003; VanLancker Sidtis & Rallon, 2004; see Figure 2a). In patients studied by Brunner,Kornhuber, Seemueller, Suger, and Wallesch (1982), automatisms and recurrentutterances occurred only in the case of cortical and subcortical lesions. Lieberman(2000, 2001) associated the overlearned motor behaviors of speech with the highlyevolved basal ganglia in humans. How the basal ganglia nuclei interact with LH orRH cortical areas to hyperactivate, normally produce, or reduce formulaic lan-guage is not yet understood.

FUNCTIONAL IMAGING STUDIES OF PRODUCTION

The site of brain processing of nonpropositional speech has been investigated by anumber of functional imaging studies. Early studies using Single Photon EmissionComputed Tomography (SPECT) technology reported bilateral representation ofautomatic speech tasks (Lassen & Larsen, 1980; Ryding, Bradvik & Ingvar, 1987),but the meaning of these findings is overshadowed by subsequent studies that havereported bilateral brain signals for many propositional tasks (Van Lancker Sidtis,in press). In one study (Van Lancker, McIntosh & Grafton, 2003), five aphasic pa-tients who had suffered a single, unilateral stroke in the perisylvian region werecompared to nine normal–control paticipants, all right-handed, and matched in ageand education. Tasks were three sets of 90-sec activation sessions producing (a)animal names, (b) vocalized syllables, and (c) counting. Behavioral measures dif-fered significantly between normal–controls and patients for generation of animalnames, but not for vocalizations or counting. Using partial least squares analysis(McIntosh, Bookstein, Haxby, & Grady, 1996), greater left frontal activation wasidentified for naming and nonverbal vocalization; however, more RH and basalganglia areas were identified for counting. For aphasic patients, naming and non-verbal vocalization were associated with relatively more bilateral structures.


Another study using Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging in normalindividuals employed two speech tasks traditionally considered to be automatic: aserial task (months of the year) and a well rehearsed, memorized text (the Pledge ofAllegiance) compared to tongue movements and consonant–vowel syllable pro-duction (Bookheimer, Zeffiro, Blaxton, Gaillard, & Theodore, 2000). Continuousproduction of the Pledge of Allegiance showed activation in traditional languageareas, but reciting the months of the year engaged only limited language areas(Brodmann areas 44 and 22). Tasks did not include counting, which is the auto-matic speech behavior most frequently observed in aphasia, and is most commonlyused in intraoperative cortical mapping for speech. In a preliminary report usingPET imaging, differences in brain activation patterns for counting compared withstorytelling were described (Blank, Scott, & Wise, 2001). A later report addressingthe same question indicated extensive bilateral activation for propositional andnonpropositional tasks alike, with no differences in brain sites between speechmodes (Blank, Scott, Murphy, Warburton, & Wise, 2002).

Together, although difficulties in interpreting signals derived from functionalimaging have been noted and interpretations can be speculative (Sidtis et al., 1996;Van Lancker Sidtis, in press), these studies suggest that counting, the most com-monly retained residual automatic speech in aphasia, is stored and processed in thebrain differently from newly generated speech production.1

COMPREHENSION STUDIES

The majority of group studies of nonliteral language processing in the brain ad-dress questions about comprehension, and most of this work is designed in the par-adigm of hemispheric specialization for different types of communicative func-tions. Specialized representation in the LH of phonology, syntax, and lexicalsemantics has long been assumed from lesion and other neurolinguistic studies(see Van Lancker, 1997, for review). These and split-brain studies (testing epilepticpatients in whom the corpus callosum has been sectioned) have consistently indi-cated that in the RH, phonological, lexical, and syntactic processing is severelylimited or nonexistent (Gazzaniga, Ivry, & Mangun, 2002, p. 411; Zaidel, 1976).Thus, it has been of special interest to discover that comprehension of varioustypes of formulaic language appears to implicate the RH. Idioms (Bryan, 1988;Burgess & Chiarello, 1996; Myers & Linebaugh, 1981), fixed metaphoric expres-sions (Winner & Gardner, 1977); indirect requests, which are frequently formulaic(Weylman, Brownell, Roman, & Gardner, 1989); and conversation (Rehak,Kaplan, & Gardner, 1992) show deficient processing in the patient with RH dam-


1The functional imaging studies evaluating comprehension of nonliteral language have addressedprocessing of creative metaphors (Bottini, et al., 1994; Rapp, Leube, Erb, Grodd, & Kirchner, 2004)and will not be reviewed here.

age. There is now a well-established range of pragmatic deficits associated withRH damage (Joanette, Goulet, Hannequin, & Boeglin, 1989; Myers, 1998;Tompkins, 1995). These results further support the notion of a neurological disso-ciation in processing of novel and formulaic language.

Some approaches to idiom processing in RH-damaged patients required a ver-bal response, such as a definition or interpretation of the nonliteral expression.Somewhat different results obtained using online idiom comprehension have sug-gested that the RH deficits reported in some studies might be due to task conditions(Tompkins, Boada, & McGarry, 1992). To avoid imposing verbal demands on theparticipants, Kempler and Van Lancker (1996) employed an instrument called theFormulaic and Novel Language Comprehension (FANL-C) Test, in which 20 for-mulaic utterances (idioms, proverbs, and speech formulas) were matched (inlength and sentence structure) to 20 novel expressions, with four line drawings asresponses. Here the focus was on ability to process the two types of form: famil-iar–nonliteral versus novel–literal utterances. When this test was administered tounilaterally brain-damaged patients, a double dissociation was observed: LH-damaged patients performed poorly on literal expressions but relatively better onidiomatic and formulaic language, and RH patients performed relatively worse onformulaic and idiomatic language than on novel expressions (Kempler, VanLancker, Marchman, & Bates, 1999; Van Lancker & Kempler, 1987). These stud-ies assaying hemispheric function for nonliteral expressions, whether form ormeanings were emphasized, implicate the RH as significant moderator.

Lack of support of a RH contribution to nonliteral processing has also recentlybeen reported (Oliveri, Romero, & Papagno, 2004), using written stimuli andtranscranial magnetic stimulation (magnetic signals applied at the scalp tempo-rarily disrupt cortical function), a technique that is still in the development stage. Inanother study of 10 aphasic patients (Papagno, Tabossi, Colombo, & Zampetti,2004), comprehension of “opaque” idioms read aloud to the participants was im-paired with a bias toward the literal (implausible) drawing. No RH patients weretested. This study differs from the previous study using the FANL-C (Van Lancker& Kempler, 1987), in which a literal response is not provided as an option. This de-sign was adopted for the FANL-C based on the belief that it is difficult to interpretthe meaning of a technically correct, literal response to a nonliteral expression.

THE RIGHT HEMISPHERE IN COMPREHENSIONOF NONLITERAL LANGUAGE

Numerous studies of the pragmatics of language, previously reviewed, have asso-ciated RH damage with deficits in various aspects of communicative function.Many of these findings pertain to nonliteral language studies. An early study byBenton (1968), performed before notions of an RH role in nonliteral communica-


tion, was designed to evaluate the role of the frontal lobe damage on a number ofverbal functions, including proverb interpretation. The results were greater impair-ment in patients with right side frontal lobe damage, but at the time, there was noexplanation for this finding.

The role of the RH in formulaic language comprehension is likely to be subtle,reflecting more about mode of processing than actual achieved goal. Tasks, stim-uli, and response modes may affect the results. For example, patients with eitherRH or LH damage are sometimes able to copy a complex figure adequately, but thestrategies for arriving at a suitable copy differ between the two groups (Lezak,1995). Groups of persons with RH or LH damage make a similar number of errorsin recognizing the emotional prosody of spoken utterances, but the errors are basedon the misuse of different acoustic cues by each group (Van Lancker & Sidtis,1992). This difference in hemispheric strategy has been repeatedly demonstrated(Bever, 1975; Bogen, 1969; Martin, 1979). One can assume that the hemispheredominant for language, the LH, can somehow accomplish the better part of mostverbal tasks. But many studies indicate that the RH makes an important con-tribution to verbal communication, including those involving comprehension ofnonliteral language (see Joanette et al., 1989; Myers, 1998; Paradis, 1998). Iden-tifying and demonstrating that contribution requires care and caution in experi-mental design.

In normal persons, both hemispheres are probably required to fully and nor-mally perform the task of nonliteral language comprehension, and LH damage canbe expected also to disrupt this ability. In fact, it appears that compromise of brainfunction is often associated with deficient nonliteral language abilities. Nonliterallanguage comprehension is below normal in Parkinson’s disease (Kempler & VanLancker, 1993), Down’s syndrome (Papagno & Vallar, 2001), and organic braindamage of many kinds is associated with deficient processing of various types ofnonliteral language functions (interpreting proverbs and recognizing idioms).Nonliteral language tests have sensitivity, but not specificity, to psychiatric and de-menting conditions. These more general deficits may relate back to the previouslypopular, but now somewhat antiquated, idea that the brain-damaged patient haslost aspects of the abstract attitude of normal cognition, and retains mainly think-ing in the concrete attitude (e.g., Head, 1987).

OTHER BRAIN DAMAGE EFFECTSON NONLITERAL LANGUAGE

A study examining the impact of callosal absence suggested strongly that communi-cation between the two cerebral hemispheres is required for effective processing offormulaic language (Paul et al, 2003). Normally intelligent adult males withagenesis of the corpus callosum but without focal brain damage were evaluated us-


ing the FANL-C (Kempler & Van Lancker, 1996) and the Gorham Proverbs Test(Gorham, 1956). The individuals with agenesis of the corpus callosum were signifi-cantly impaired on the nonpropositional (formulaic) items of the FANL-C, but werenot different from controls in comprehension of propositional items. Their re-sponses on two of the Gorham proverbs are shown in Table 3. When their responseswere scored for completeness of form (structural parts of proverb) and meaning,their performance was found to be deficient (Paul, Van Lancker, Schieffer, Dietrich,&Brown,2003).Thesepersonswithagenesisof thecorpuscallosumhad intact righthemispheres and basal ganglia, but lacked normal interhemispheric integration.

Another observation suggests that two hemispheres are required for nonliterallanguage comprehension. A 50-year-old adult male who had undergone a lefthemispherectomy at age 5, but developed normal language function and had nor-mal IQ scores on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, was extensively tested ona series of language and other cognitive protocols (Van Lancker Sidtis, 2004b). Hisperformance was normal throughout the testing, with only a few exceptions. Onewas the FANL-C. He performed normally on the literal portion of the FANL-C, butperformed subnormally on the nonliteral exemplars.

Using the FANL-C, loss of nonliteral language comprehension has also beenseen in early stages in Alzheimer’s disease (Kempler, Van Lancker, & Read, 1988).This finding was compelling, because nine of the participants, who were mild intheir disease progression, had confirmed diagnoses of Alzheimer’s disease follow-ing biopsy. It appeared that performance on nonliteral expressions might be a sen-sitive marker of early dementia. A failure to find significantly poorer processing ofnonliteral language in Alzheimer’s disease was later reported, using in a task em-ploying verbal interpretation (Papagno, 2001). However, differences in perfor-mance in the Alzheimer group between literal and nonliteral stimuli was also re-ported in that study, again supporting the notion that the two types of languageinvolve different processing requirements. A later study (Papagno, Lucchelli,Muggia & Rizzo, 2003) reported significant idiom recognition deficits in personswith mild Alzheimer’s disease under certain task conditions.

It is a common clinical occurrence that persons in the advanced stage of Alzhei-mer’s disease, who have lost most higher cognitive function, utilize what is referredto as empty speech (Cummings & Benson, 1983). Some of this speech is constitutedby express nonpropositional expressions, especially interactional speech formulas(Kempler, 1991). It is interesting that many persons with Alzheimer’s disease retaincommunicative production of formulaic expressions well into the progression oftheir disease. This is a common clinical observation, although it has not yet been sys-tematically demonstrated. This dissociation in Alzheimer’s disease between pro-duction of formulaic utterances, which is retained until late stages, and cognitivecomprehension of nonpropositional expressions, which is impaired early on, mightbeaccounted forby theknowncerebral involvement in thedisease.Temporal—pari-etal cortical areas become affected first, yielding the characteristic cognitive—lin-


231

TABLE 3Sample of Responses on Proverb Interpretation From Subjects With Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum and Normal Control

Subjects. Responses Are Impoverished in Form and Sometimes Incorrect in Meaning.

Proverb Persons With Genesis of the Corpus Callosum: Responses Normal Responses

Rome was not built in a day. • It took years to build Rome.• You should take your time on tasks.• It is a very old town.• It took time.• Took a long time to build the city.• Great things take time.• Take your time.• Great things take time.

• Although effort & desire are keys, accomplishmentsstill take time and work.

• Don’t worry about how long it takes to do something.• It suggests that when you want to be successful it takes

time to achieve it.• It takes time for things to happen.• It takes time to do big or great things.• It means that it takes longer than a day to do anything.• Things don’t just happen over night.• You can’t do everything all at once, things take time.• Some things so big can be finished so fast.• Patience is a very important quality to develop things

take time.• Patience.• Things take time.• Something cannot be accomplished in a short period of

time.• It took a long time to build it.• Good things take time.

(continued)

232

Barking dogs seldom bite. • Barking dogs sometimes bite.• People who brag how tough they are sometimes aren’t.• They just scare.• Many people use their words but they don’t work to

beat up each other.• Words don’t damage as much as something can

physically damage.• Some people who claim to be big and tough, all they

are is talk, just a bag of hot air.

• Impressions may not always be correct: hardenedoutside nature does not exclude soft inside nature.

• People do a lot of talking instead of taking action.• People that always talk sometimes don’t produce.• All noise and no action.• Noise-words without actions are nothing.• Your bark is not as bad as your bite; people are afraid of

things they hear until they try it for themselves.• There all talk no action.• If a dog is barking the he is trying to scare away

because he is scared.• Loud mouth means action none.• You’re all talk, and no action.• It just wants to seem tough when it’s really not.• Dogs who bark a lot bite a lot.• It is not always what it seems to appear.

TABLE 3 (Continued)

Proverb Persons With Genesis of the Corpus Callosum: Responses Normal Responses

guistic deficits, yet frontal–subcortical systems remain intact until the terminalstages, allowingfor longerpreservationofvocal–motor functions,whichapparentlyinclude normal-sounding production of nonpropositional expressions.

COMPREHENSION VERSUS PRODUCTION:DIFFERENCES IN BRAIN PROCESSING?

It is likely that brain processing for nonliteral language differs according to pro-duction or comprehension modes. The dissociation of production ability and com-prehension deficit in Alzheimer’s disease, as described, provides one compellingexample. Differences may be further seen according to type of formulaic utter-ance. Swearing, counting, sentence stems, and discourse elements may be emittedby the RH, as seen in aphasia and in the adult hemispherectomy patient (Smith,1966; Smith & Burklund, 1966; Van Lancker Sidtis, 2004b), perhaps in crucial as-sociation with basal ganglia nuclei. Other subsets of nonliteral speech productionmay require the LH or both hemispheres.

Production and comprehension processes for proper nouns, which have differ-ent linguistic properties from common nouns (Valentine, Brennen & Bredart,1996) and may belong to nonpropositional language, differ in human processing(Bredart, Brennen, & Valentine, 1997). Retrieval (production) of proper nouns ap-pears to be impaired by LH damage (Damasio, Grabowski, Tranel, Hachwa, &Damasio, 1996; Semenza, Mondini & Zettin, 1995; Van Lancker Sidtis et al.,2003). Studies of unilaterally brain damaged patients have shown that familiarproper nouns are relatively well processed by severely LH damaged patients, pre-sumably benefiting from the intact RH (Van Lancker & Klein, 1990; Yasuda &Ono, 1998). Some studies of normal individuals suggest that personally familiarproper nouns are processed equally well in both cerebral hemispheres, unlikematched common nouns (Ohnesorge & Van Lancker, 2001). However, some un-certainty about the RH role in proper noun comprehension in normal individualsremains (Schweinberger, Kaufmann, & McColl, 2002), due at least in part to theinherent difficulties in designing group studies of personally familiar stimuli (VanLancker, 1991; Van Lancker & Ohnesorge, 2002).

DUAL-PROCESSING MODEL OF LANGUAGE

This review of the neurology of nonliteral language processing leads to a model oflanguage that allows for two disparate modes of processing. One mode establishesa competence for novel language, utilizing phonological, morphological, andgrammatical rules in accord with a lexicon. The other mode accommodates a verylarge repertory of formulaic expressions that are processed in terms of canonical,


stereotyped forms and conventionalized meanings. This proposal is not at all new;it has been expressed in many other venues of scholarship. Hughlings Jackson(1874/1932), as a result of his extensive observations of nonpropositional andpropositional language abilities in the clinic, spoke of “dual mentation” (p. 169) innormal speech. In Tannen (1989), a model of language alternating of “fixity andcreativity” (p. 3) is proposed. Lounsbury (1963) described constructions that are“familiar and employed as a whole unit” (p. 561), in contrast to newly created con-structions, claiming that these two types of construction have different psychologi-cal statuses in actual speaking behavior. Bolinger (1961, 1976) spoke often of in-terplay between remembered and newly created speech. Sinclair (1987) posits the“open choice” and the “idiom” (pp. 319–320) principles necessary to describe nor-mal speech.

The dual mode processing model is merely a facet of a dichotomy in human be-haviors that has been described in other scientific disciplines. In information pro-cessing, it has been referred to as controlled versus automatic processing (Schnei-der & Shiffrin, 1977); in memory systems, the distinction between habitual anddeclarative (Mishkin, Malamut, & Bachevalier, 1984) or procedural and semanticmemory (Knowlton, Mangels, & Squire, 1996; Squire, 2004) remains viable. Formotor systems, Marsden (1982) posited a contrast between automatic and plannedexecution. For vocalization, the dual mode concept was reflected in Robinson’s(1987) dichotomy of emotive versus elaborated speech and in Ploog’s (1979) viewof differential brain bases for human, as compared with animal, vocalizations. Asimilar dichotomy was elaborated by Koestler (1967), who proposed a hierarchicalsystem from novel to habitual behaviors in the nervous system, corresponding, likethe other proposals mentioned, to its vertical organization (from basal ganglia nu-clei to cortex). Some individuals interested in this topic have proposed that evolu-tion of human language can be better accounted for by proposing these two dispa-rate modes (Code, 2005; Jaynes, 1976). Finally, the dual mode model is also usefulfor describing normal language acquisition (Locke, 1997; Vihman, 1982).

Normal language competence consists of a deft interplay of formulaic andnovel language, each processed according to different mechanisms and servingdistinctive needs. Any fixed expression can be subjected to the rule-governed pro-cesses of novel language—hence the demonstrable flexibility of nonliteral utter-ances in actual language process; yet formulaic expressions, by definition, areknown to the native speaker—hence their property of fixedness. Creativity in nor-mal language use consists not only of the generation of new sentences, but also inthe continuous convergence of holistic and novel language modes in processing.

CONCLUSION

Evidence from neurologically impaired patients—including those with left or rightcortical damage from stroke or dementia, subcortical dysfunction, or agenesis of


the corpus callosum—leads to four conclusions. The first is that the type of lan-guage called propositional (i.e., novel, syntactically, and lexically based sen-tences) and the various types of speech called nonpropositional (including idioms,speech formulas, proverbs, slang, discourse elements, sayings, and any other uni-tary expressions known to the native speaker) are stored and processed differentlyin the brain. This is inferred from converging evidence that neurological condi-tions affect these two modes of language competence differently.

The second notion that is beginning to emerge is that many kinds of nonliterallanguage, although perhaps not all, are modulated by a RH–subcortical circuit.This appears to be true for comprehension, as well as production. This conclusionis based on group studies on comprehension abilities and deficits, and on groupand individual case studies of production abilities and production deficits in unilat-erally brain damaged patients. Other neurological clinical observations, such ashyperactivated swearing in Tourette’s syndrome, and preserved speech formulaproduction in Alzheimer’s disease, also point to significant involvement of basalganglia nuclei and the right cortical hemisphere in at least certain subsets ofnonliteral language production.

Third, it appears that both hemispheres are needed for successful productionand comprehension of nonpropositional speech. This is seen in reduced compre-hension competence in persons with agenesis of the corpus callosum, who haveotherwise intact brains, but in whom the communication between the hemispheresis not optimal; it is seen in the fact that damage to the RH or subcortical damageonly partially disrupts comprehension and production of nonpropositional speech,that LH damage, as well as brain damage of several other varieties, affectsnonliteral language performance.

Finally, neurological evidence suggests that normal language use consists oftwo modes of processing, one for management of a very large repertory of unitarystructures, and a second for assemblage of novel structures according to a set ofrules. The model entails the proposal that the generative mode can operate at anytime on a fixed expression, producing variations, but the canonical form, with itsspecial characteristics of stereotyped form and conventional meaning, retains itsstatus as part of the speaker’s knowledge. Many observations in idiom studies,aphasic speech, and other language disorders following neurological impairmentsare well accommodated by this model of language. What is to be further examinedis how the various kinds of formulaic expressions differ from each other, and howthey are differentially represented in human cerebral structures.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Gina Canterucci assisted in data analysis, and John Sidtis commented on earlierversions of this article.


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where in the brain is nonliteral language?€¦ · in the brain differently from newly created...

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