At this point, the mind may begin to boggle at the diverse inner experiences of language that people can have. After all, aren’t we all using the same parts of our brains to process language? The answer is yes and no. While certain neural areas are involved in all language processing, in individual cases, there may be cross-talk between certain regions. Some recent neuroscientific research indicates that any given person’s neural pattern for processing language may be as unique as his or her fingerprints. While it is true that for all of us, certain given areas of the brain are involved in language processing, it is also true that the brain is a much more dynamic and plastic environment than was once thought; neural patterns can take many forms.
Some Research on How the Brain Processes Language
As the research of Ramachandran and Baron-Cohen might indicate, unexpected neural cross-activation can take place between language-processing areas and other regions of the brain, producing some truly unique experiences of language.
The late world-famous scientist Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the double-helix nature of DNA, also did research indicating the uniqueness and complexity of language processing. Crick and his team at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, found that different aspects of language are processed in different areas of the brain. In contrast to what was previously believed, there is not just one language center in the left brain that is activated when words are heard, spoken, or thought of; rather, a variety of different centers spread throughout the brain’s visual and auditory cortices are activated simultaneously, and the relevant information from each converges to form the full meaning of the word and its implications. One linguistic center might provide information about the spelling of the word, another about its part of speech, another about the appearance of the word and/or the thing it represents.
With this model it is not hard to imagine that with any given individual, other areas of brain activation might get into the mix, such as those responsible for color processing — which could explain the case of those like Nabokov, who experience color-lexical synesthesia. (Whatever principle organizes all of this information, causing it to converge to form even a simple concept like cup is still a mystery; Crick believed that this as yet undiscovered “binding principle” mediates meaningful language — and perhaps all forms of cognition.) Unexpected regions can also get into the language-processing mix because of the brain’s plasticity and its flexibility in adapting areas to functions for which they were not predisposed.
The idea that all human beings can incorporate vivid sensory elements into their language processing is not new. As far back as the 1920s, two research psychologists at the University of Oregon — Raymond Wheeler and Thomas Cutsforth — also came to this conclusion while studying colored-language synesthesia. Following their study, the two psychologists concluded that “there is no such thing as image-less, sensation-less meaning”; in other words, we are always inwardly coding language and other information in regular sensory ways so that, as they put it, “synesthesia is an essential mechanism in the construction of meaning that functions in the same way as certain unattended mental functions in nonsynesthetes.”
But what would happen if those “unattended mental processes” were attended to? Could it have been a keen awareness of inner language code that aided Nabokov in mastering four languages? On this point, of course, we can only speculate. However, we do have a report of a contemporary synesthete, Natasha Lvovich, who has written about her own color-lexical synesthesia in her book, “The Multilingual Self.” In one of its chapters, “Confessions of a Synesthete,” Lvovich describes how the colors and tactile qualities vary in the different languages, and how her awareness of this imagery figured in her process of learning French, Italian, and English in addition to her native Russian. Lvovich reports visual, tactile and auditory sensations in her personal coding of language. As Lvovich describes, “In English, “six” is whitish, fuzzy, dull glass; in French, creamy in color and substance. [Monday] in Russian, Pondel’nik is grayish and dull, and [English] Monday is orange-red-brown-gamma. English “L” is tough, very glassy, upfront pink, while the softer Russian “L” (“lya”) sound is a soft, warm pink.”
Other speakers of languages with non-Roman alphabets also report seeing the characters of the language’s writing systems in color. Shibana Tajwar, an environmental engineer who is a speaker of Bengali and Urdu, says that the colors of sounds in both languages correspond to similar sounds in English, although the shades may vary. Bengalis’ aspirated “C” sound is pale yellow (“less lemon-y,” as Tajwar puts it). She describes the four different “T” sounds in Bengali and Urdu as having four different shades of blue. The Bengali “T” sound that resembles English “T” is navy blue.
Similarly, Su Kim, a native speaker of Korean, reports that she perceives the Korean “ka” sound as navy blue, just like the English consonant “K” (although she reports that the Korean sound has a “rougher texture”).
Like Lvovich, Tajwar and Kim are aware of this internal imagery being an integral part of their experiences of knowing/learning language. The rich inner “language landscapes” of those with classic color-lexical synesthesia suggest some value might be derived from encouraging language students to gain greater awareness of their “personal language codes.” Teachers might encourage students to reflect on these in language-learning diaries, or even try to represent them on personal computers. Could it also become a study tool? Might students find ways to use their naturally occurring inner perceptions as an aid to better remembering and retaining new language?
Before closing, it may be prudent to remind ourselves that language evolved relatively late and in a relatively short time in human history. Our varied ways of processing and experiencing language show the truth of William James’ assertion that there is no “typical mind which all minds are like.” They also show nature’s preference for diversity as we humans and our language continue to evolve.
An earlier version of this article was published in Folio: Journal of the Materials Development Association. This article is updated from its initial publication in Brain World Magazine’s Spring 2009 issue.
