This book presents a journey into how language is put together for speaking and understanding
and how it can come apart when there is injury to the brain. The goal is to provide a window
into language and the brain through the lens of aphasia a speech and language disorder
resulting from brain injury in adults. This book answers the question of how the brain analyzes
the pieces of language its sounds words meaning and ultimately puts them together into a
unitary whole. While its major focus is on clinical experimental and theoretical approaches
to language deficits in aphasia it integrates this work with recent technological advances in
neuroimaging to provide a state-of-the-art portrayal of language and brain function. It also
shows how current computational models that share properties with those of neurons allow for a
common framework to explain how the brain processes language and its parts and how it breaks
down according to these principles. Consideration will also be given to whether language can
recover after brain injury or when areas of the brain recruited for speaking understanding or
reading are deprived of input as seen with people who are deaf or blind. No prior knowledge of
linguistics psychology computer science or neuroscience is assumed. The informal style of
this book makes it accessible to anyone with an interest in the complexity and beauty of
language and who wants to understand how it is put together how it comes apart and how
language maps on to the brain.
