Thought into Breath into Voice into Word – Listening and the Language link

Thought into Breath into Voice into Word – Listening and the Language link

 

Students often laugh when I bang on about allowing the thought that you’ve chosen to say, into your breath.  Most of us think of speaking as being immediate and won’t consider that it’s:

Thought – into breath – into voice – into word

Yes it feels like it happens all at the same time but neuroscientists agree that running around the lateral sulcus (also known as the fissure of Syllvius) in the left hemisphere of the brain, there is a sort of neural loop that is involved both in understanding and in producing spoken language.  At the front end of this loop lies Broca’s area, which is usually associated with the production of language or language outputs.  At the other end (the superior posterior temporal lobe), lies Wernicke’s area, which is associated with the processing of words that we hear being spoken, or are our language (thought)  inputs.  Broca’s area and Wernicke’s are connected by a bundle of nerve fibres called the arcuate fasciculus.

Yes it feels like we’re talking and thinking at the same time – especially when we find we’re being listened to and our thoughts start to flow into words.  The connection is a nanosecond or thereabouts.  A client  Physicist, who’s now a Metallurgist, advised me to watch the Grace Hopper explanation of a nanosecond.  It’s a revelation – click on the photo below for the nanosecond explanation – and visit  “The Brain from Top to Bottom” http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/index.ph for more information about the brain and the ability to communicate.

Grace Hopper