Locke J L
Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, USA.
Brain Lang. 1997 Jun 15;58(2):265-326. doi: 10.1006/brln.1997.1791.
This article offers a developmental theory of language and the neural systems that lead to and subserve linguistic capabilities. Early perceptual experience and discontinuities in linguistic development suggest that language develops in four phases that occur in a fixed, interdependent sequence. In each phase of language, a unique ontogenetic function is accomplished. These functions have proprietary neural systems that vary in their degree of specialization. Of particular interest is an analytical mechanism that is responsible for linguistic grammar. This mechanism is time-locked and can only be turned on in the third phase. Confirming evidence is provided by children who are delayed in the second phase of the language learning process. These children store insufficient lexical material to activate their analytic mechanism. Inactivation behaves like damage, shifting language functions to homologous mechanisms in the nondominant hemisphere, thereby increasing functional and anatomical symmetry across the hemispheres. This atypical assembly of neurolinguistic resources produces functional but imperfect command of spoken language and may complicate learning of written language. The theory thus offers a different role for genetics and early experience, and a different interpretation of neuroanatomic findings, from those entertained in most other proposals on developmental language disorders.
本文提出了一种关于语言以及导致并支持语言能力的神经系统的发展理论。早期的感知体验和语言发展中的不连续性表明，语言按固定的、相互依存的顺序分四个阶段发展。在语言的每个阶段，都完成一项独特的个体发生功能。这些功能具有各自专有的神经系统，其专业化程度各不相同。特别令人感兴趣的是一种负责语言语法的分析机制。这种机制是时间锁定的，并且只能在第三阶段开启。在语言学习过程的第二阶段出现延迟的儿童提供了确凿的证据。这些儿童存储的词汇材料不足，无法激活他们的分析机制。失活的表现类似于损伤，将语言功能转移至非优势半球的同源机制，从而增加了跨半球的功能和解剖学对称性。这种神经语言资源的非典型组合导致口语功能虽有但不完善，并可能使书面语言的学习变得复杂。因此，该理论对遗传学和早期经验的作用，以及对神经解剖学发现的解释，与大多数其他关于发育性语言障碍的提议所考虑的不同。
