Language Electrified: Principles, Methods, and Future Perspectives of Investigation

Language, as a system we use to communicate, represents the brain’s biologically perfected machinery for converting thoughts (ideas, concepts, and reflections of both the outside world and our inner feelings) into words and sentences. Crucially, this process occurs in real time. How hundreds of billions of neurons within the dark of the skull control language and speech remains, in some respects, a mystery. To track such neural dynamics in time, we need to exploit physiological tools capable of following temporal patterns of neural activity on a fine-grain time scale. In parallel, it is necessary to begin to provide a real interdisciplinary academic background for scholars wishing to embark on this field of study. Unlike many similar efforts, this book has been conceived as a hands-on tool offering the reader the possibility to progressively acquire principles, techniques, and methods necessary to pursue interdisciplinary research in a fascinating field intersecting linguistic andneuroscience. It focuses on neurophysiological methods and applications useful to track the high speed and rapid temporal dynamics of neural activity involved in language and speech. The chapters in this book are organized into four parts. Part One discusses neural principles and tools for an effective approach to the field of investigation. Part Two looks at the issues and perspectives concerned with the use of a range of neurophysiological technologies to investigate the neural computations of language and speech processes. Part Three focuses on an in-depth exploration of the neural processes associated with the main types of linguistic information, ranging from phonemes and prosody to syntax, pragmatics, and figurative language. Lastly, Part Five explores the phenomena that goes beyond the segments of basic linguistic units. In the

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