linguistic relativity
We know that the severity of a lesion and the presence of post-lesional complications are factors on which the success of the restoration of damaged brain functions depends. The observations made on the compensation of traumas in young people who have suffered brain damage, indicates that age is an important factor in the process of complete post-traumatic rehabilitation. This is because the brain of a young person has more potential to compensate and restore the functions affected than the brain of an elderly person, which has a reduced cerebral blood flow and a certain loss of brain plasticity.
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The next step will be to reorganize the patient’s brain function so it has a certain linguistic competence. Here two linguists come into play: Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf. Their hypothesis, which has taken the name of Linguistic Relativity, affirms that the language people speak influences their cognitive development. In its most extreme form, this hypothesis states that the way they express themselves determines their way of thinking.
Whorf, in particular, transformed this hypothesis into something more precise and concrete by examining the particular grammatical mechanisms where thought influences language, by stating:
“We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscope flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems of our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way—an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language.”
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Because, as the Hungarian philologist Karl Kerényi said:
“The interdependence of thought and speech makes it clear that languages are not so much a means of expressing truth that has already been established, but are a means of discovering truth that was previously unknown. Their diversity is a diversity not of sounds and signs but of ways of looking at the world.”
It is known that in human beings some parts of the temporal and frontal lobe of the left hemisphere are of fundamental importance for the comprehension and production of language. It should be noted however that language, which is one of the most complex cognitive functions, is not linked to a single structure.
The right hemisphere, for example, is very important for the emotional and pragmatic aspects of language, and perhaps for some linguistic aspects of languages learned after the acquisition of the mother tongue, too.
It is estimated that around 50% of the world’s population uses another language in addition to their mother tongue.
In this regard, some collaborators of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), through magnetic resonance (MRI scan), examined some mother tongue subjects who had acquired a good school knowledge of English after the age of seven. The result was that in all subjects, listening to a story in their mother tongue induced a strong activation of the left hemisphere and a certain activation of the right hemisphere. Instead, listening to a story in English elicited very different responses in several subjects, in some of whom only the activation of the right hemisphere was observed.
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Conclusion
This study has sought to highlight the post-traumatic rehabilitation pathway by emphasizing and explaining its main points and steps, and trying to answer the question that every family member and friend of the affected person usually asks, which is, “Will he ever recover from this trauma? What will his life be like when he leaves hospital? Will he be the same person as before or will I find him changed?”
Possible answers to these questions can be found in this thesis - that I consider
"my personal story" - based on facts, events, and stories that happened during my recovery. In particular, I wanted to take this opportunity to give support, encouragement, and an incentive to those who, like me in the past, find themselves in a similar condition, and to testify, especially to those who believe
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differently, that with this kind of trauma a person’s life is not completely meaningless.
The result of my research shows that, with a team of great specialists, doctors, and speech therapists, combined with sacrifices, an incredible desire to recover and, why not, a bit of luck, we can reacquire what only a short while before we had thought was no longer ours: life itself.
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Introducción
Esta tesis quiere destacar un problema que hoy conoce de algunas personas: el trauma cerebral, las dificultades que puede encontrar una persona afectada y cómo puede recuperarse para volver a una vida lo más normal posible.
Las motivaciones y los objetivos que me han empujado a tratar un tema así son principalmente dos. En primer lugar porque quiero contar mi historia de
"milagroso" exponiendo la dura prueba y la montaña que he tenido que escalar, como todas las personas que estaban en mi misma situación. En segundo lugar, quiero describir la importancia de la rehabilitación que permite a la persona afectada por el trauma de volver a tener una vida aceptable.
Mi tesis se articula en cuatro capítulos: en el primer capítulo se facilitan descripciones generales sobre la composición del cerebro y la información sobre las lesiones cerebrales que resultan en coma y recuperación posterior. El segundo capítulo trata sobre el desarrollo de uno de los desórdenes de la función cognitiva más comunes para una persona con una lesión cerebral. En el tercer capítulo, el análisis se centra en los diversos déficits pragmáticos que esta situación conlleva para el paciente: por lo tanto, tratará los disturbios de comunicación, neurolingüística y otras modalidades lingüísticas y extralingüísticas. Por último, en el cuarto capítulo, se analiza la importancia de estudiar otras lenguas (además de la lengua materna) para la restauración de las funciones afectadas por el trauma y, con un experimento realizado por el CNRS, el importante papel de los hemisferios cerebrales en adquisición del lenguaje.
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