In Chapter 10: Language Organs and Grammar Genes, Pinker investigates the myths of various proportions of the brain that have been considered as “language organs”. At the start of the chapter Pinker discusses James J. Kilpatrick’s column: Better Grammar through Genetics. This column claimed that there is a dominant gene controls the ability to learn grammar, and Erma Bombeck’s column Poor Grammar? It Are in the Gene agrees with this claim. Pinker concludes there was no evidence of an existence of a grammar gene and debunks the misunderstood theories of neurobiology and geneticist. Instead, he investigates existence areas of the brain that may contain an actual grammar gene. First, he discusses Broca’s area. Paul Broca, after discovering a lesion in a patient’s left hemisphere this discovery has been confirmed by many scientific evidence. To analyze this assumption that the Broca’s area is where language resides in this are, Pinker illustrated experiments done on the left hemisphere of the brain. For example, neurosurgeons discovered with a dose of sodium amytal can paralyze a particular hemisphere in the brain. Then realized patients with a paralyzed left hemisphere counld not speak, however they were able to if the right was affected. However, Pinker doesn’t believe the Broca’s area is not the center for language because even if this region is damaged the patient can still have grammar abilities. My belief is if language has a reserved shelf or filing cabinet in the brain than if it doesn’t just one specific region where it resides.
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