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Scientists have been studying human language for centuries, and for good reason.
几个世纪以来，科学家们一直在研究人类语言，这是有充分理由的。
Our language abilities seem to far exceed those of any other living thing
我们运用语言的能力似乎远远超过了其他任何生物，
— so understanding how we communicate is essential to understanding what makes us so powerful species.
所以，理解我们如何交流，对于理解什么使我们成为如此强大的物种至关重要。
Plus, there are lots of people who have specific disabilities with language — what doctors call aphasias.
另外，还有很多人患有特殊的语言障碍——医生称之为失语症。
And understanding the seat of language in the brain could help doctors better treat those conditions.
了解语言在大脑中的位置，能帮助医生更好地治疗此类疾病。
Of course, if you cracked open a Psych 101 textbook before this decade, you might think we already know what that seat is.
当然，如果你在十年前打开一本心理学101课本，可能会认为我们已经知道其所处的位置了。
About 150 years ago, scientists identified Broca's and Wernicke's areas
大约150年前，科学家们确定出布罗卡和韦尼克的区域，
— the two main "language centers" in the brain.
这是大脑中两个主要的“语言中心”。
They're often described as the regions responsible for language production and comprehension, respectively
它们通常被描述为分别负责语言产生和理解的区域
— but at best, that glosses over what these parts actually do.
——但这掩盖了这些部分的实际作用。
And lingering misconceptions about them not only impair our understanding of how our brains work
对它们的误解不仅会损害我们对大脑工作方式的理解，
— they also hamper our ability to effectively treat people who struggle to communicate.
还会妨碍我们有效地对待那些难以沟通的人的能力。
Way back in the 1850s, one of the biggest debates in psychology was whether the brain had specialized regions.
早在19世纪50年代，心理学界最大的争论之一就是大脑是否存在专用区域。
Researchers had recently shown that there was some degree of this
研究人员最近发现，在某种程度上，
— like, that the brainstem did different stuff than the rest of the brain.
脑干的功能与大脑其他部分不同。
But many thought that within the larger regions, all of the tissue was equally important for everything
但是很多人认为，在更大的区域内，所有的组织对所有的事情都同样重要
— kind of like how there isn't just one part of your liver that breaks down alcohol.
——就像肝脏中不仅只有一部分可以分解酒精。
The research of Pierre Paul Broca and Carl Wernicke played a huge part in changing that.
皮埃尔·保罗·布罗卡和卡尔·韦尼克的研究对改变这种状况起了很大的作用。
It all started in 1861 when Broca — a French physician — met a patient named Louis Victor Leborgne.
这一切始于1861年，当时法国医生布罗卡遇到了一位名叫路易斯·维克托·勒博根的病人。
Though, everyone called him "Tan" because that was the only word he could say.
不过，大家都叫他“谭先生”，因为那是他唯一能说的字。
Before he was 30, he communicated normally.
在他30岁之前，他沟通正常。
Then, seemingly out of the blue, it was just "tan".
随后，似乎突然间就无法正常说话了。
He'd usually say it twice — tan tan.
他通常会说两遍——谭、谭。
So he was kind of a real life Hodor.
所以，他是个活生生的傻瓜。
Though, his speech impediment wasn't from some messed-up magical thing.
尽管如此，他的语言障碍并不是来自某种混乱的魔法。
And what Broca found really interesting was that it seemed like Tan could still understand what other people said and retained other intellectual abilities.
布罗卡发现真正有趣的是，看起来谭先生依然能理解别人说的话，并保留其他智力能力。
So when Tan died, Broca performed an autopsy.
谭先生去世后，布罗卡进行了尸检。
And he noted that a small part of Tan's brain — a spot in front of the left ear — was damaged.
他还注意到，谭先生的一小部分大脑——左耳前的一个部位——受到损伤。
A few months later, he had another patient with similar language issues — and similar brain damage.
几个月后，他又有一位病人患上类似的语言问题和类似的脑损伤。
That led Broca to conclude that this region was the part of the brain responsible for producing speech.
这使得布罗卡得出结论，这个区域是大脑负责产生语言的部分。
He called it the "center for articulated language," but it became known as Broca's area.
他称该部分为“语言表达中心”，但后来则叫做布罗卡区。
Then, about a decade later, Carl Wernicke seemed to discover the part of the brain responsible for comprehending language.
大约十年后，卡尔·韦尼克似乎发现了大脑中负责理解语言的部分。
His patients also struggled to communicate, but in a very different way
他的病人也很难交流，但方式完全不同
— they basically spoke gibberish and couldn't parse spoken or written language.
——他们基本上都是在胡言乱语，无法解析口头或书面语言。
They didn't have damage to Broca's area.
他们没有出现布罗卡区域的损伤。
Instead, their troubles appeared to be caused by damage to a region a bit further back,
相反，他们的问题似乎是由稍远的一个区域的损伤所致，
where the temporal lobe meets the parietal lobe — what we now call Wernicke's area.
颞叶和顶叶在此区域相交，我们现在把这部分称为韦尼克区。
Broca and Wernicke's findings together cemented the idea that there were specific regions for certain brain functions.
发现布罗卡和韦尼克区域，巩固了这样一种观点，即某些大脑功能存在于特定的区域。
And over the past century, the research of these two pioneers has formed the foundation of the neuroscience of language.
在过去的一个世纪里，这两位先驱的研究形成了语言神经科学的基础。
Even today, it's often said that Broca's area is where language is produced,
即使在今天，人们常说布罗卡区域是语言产生的部位，
while Wernicke's is where language is understood.
而韦尼克地区是理解语言的区域。
But that's just kind of wrong.
但这有点不对。
Like, Broca's area doesn't seem to play a big role in physically producing speech.
比如说，布罗卡区域似乎并未在肢体语言的产生中发挥很大的作用。
Broca got that idea because his patients had such severe language deficits without appearing to lose the ability to understand what's said to them.
布罗卡之所以有这样的想法，是因为他的病人患有严重的语言缺陷，却似乎无法理解对他们说的话语。
But it turns out he missed something important when he examined their brains because he didn't dissect them to look deeper.
但事实证明，他在检查他们的大脑时遗漏了一些重要的东西。因为他没有解剖这些病人，以查看得更深入。
Luckily though, he preserved those brains, so researchers were able to re-examine them with high-resolution MRI scans in 2007, that's awesome!
不过幸运的是，他保存了这些大脑。所以，研究人员在2007年时，能用高分辨率的核磁共振扫描对它们进行重新检查，真是太棒了！
What those scan revealed there was a lot more damage.
扫描显示出存在更多的损伤。
And it was likely the damage to areas outside of Broca's area which caused their severe and lasting speech deficits.
很可能是布罗卡区以外的部位受损，导致他们出现严重而持久的语言缺陷。
More recent research on Broca's area suggests that it's specialized for one specific part of language, namely syntax: how words are arranged to form coherent phrases and sentences.
最近，对布罗卡区域的研究表明，它专门用于语言的一个特定部分，即句法：如何排列单词，以形成连贯的短语和句子。
In healthy brains, Broca's area seems to monitor for syntax errors.
在健康的大脑中，布罗卡区域似乎可以监测语法错误。
Like, it lights up when people read sentences with poor grammar, but not ones with spelling mistakes.
比如，当人们读语法不通顺的句子，而不是拼写错误的句子时，该区域就会亮起来。
And damage to this area alone doesn't seem to permanently impair the ability to speak words.
仅是该区域受损，似乎并不会永久性地削弱说话的能力。
People with such damage can generally say a few of the words they're aiming for — they just struggle to put together a full, complex sentence.
存在这种损伤的人，通常能说出他们想说的几个词。他们只是很难拼凑出完整、复杂的句子。
Also, because Broca's area is involved in syntax, it is involved in language comprehension.
另外，由于布罗卡区域涉及语法，它也与语言理解相关。
For example, studies have found that stimulating it electrically — and therefore throwing off the natural firing of neurons
例如，研究发现，用电刺激大脑，从而切断神经元的自然放电，
— can make it harder for people to understand complex verbal instructions or what to do when what they're told clashes with written instructions.
会使人们更难理解复杂的口头指令，或在被告知的内容与书面指令发生冲突时该做什么。
Similarly, it turns out Wernicke's area isn't the end-all and be-all of language comprehension.
同样地，韦尼克区域并不全是负责语言理解。
Wernicke didn't actually make that claim, mind you.
请注意，韦尼克并未这么说。
He proposed that it was specialized for the sounds of language, and that there was another region where concepts were processed.
他提出，该区域专门用作语言的发声，有另一个区域负责处理概念。
And that's actually not far off.
事实上，离得并不远。
See, people with damage to Wernicke's area generally string together nonsense words and they expect everyone to understand them.
韦尼克区受损者通常会把一些无意义的词串在一起，他们预期每个人都能听懂他们的话。
And that's probably because they mix up sounds.
那可能是因为他们把声音弄混了。
Now, unless you're a professional orator, you've probably done this at some point.
现在，除非你是一个专业的演说家，否则你可能曾在某个时刻这样做过。
Like, I've probably done this while recording this episode.
比如，我可能是在录这集节目时这样做过。
Like, "can you mass me the pilk?"
比如，“你能帮我把那堆肉堆起来吗？”
But, you also probably caught yourself as you said it and realized the wrong thing came out.
但是，你也可能在说的时候发现了，并意识到出了错。
When this happens, my son points at me and he laughs, and he says "You said the wrong word!"
当这种情况发生时，我儿子指着我笑了，他说：“你说错话了！”
That same ability runs as kind of a simulator just before you speak to plan the sounds so they come out right.
在你说话之前，同样的能力就像一个模拟器计划出声音，让它们正确地发出来。
And that's what Wernicke's area seems to actually do: it processes the sounds of words, whether the person is listening, reading, or speaking.
这就是韦尼克区似乎真正要做的事：它处理单词的声音，不管这个人是在听、在读，还是在说。
That's why, unlike Broca's area, Wernicke's area becomes active when you read spelling and grammar errors.
这就是为什么，不像布罗卡区，当你的拼写和语法出错时，韦尼克区会变得活跃。
And people with damage there often swap in the wrong sounds or even whole words when speaking.
那里受损的人，说话时经常发错声，甚至整句话的声音有误。
Though, they can't tell they're doing it — so they only get upset once other people seem confused.
尽管如此，他们无法分辨自己在做什么，所以当别人感到困惑时，他们才会心烦意乱。
It's not that they can't understand language.
不是他们不懂语言。
In fact, the ability to understand the meaning of words seems to have little to do with Wernicke's area.
事实上，理解单词意思的能力似乎与韦尼克区无关。
Instead, issues with word comprehension are tied to damage that occurs to the front of the temporal lobe — and in both hemispheres.
相反，理解单词的问题与颞叶前部和两半球的损伤有关。
But, looking back, it's hard to blame people for thinking Broca's and Wernicke's areas were the seats of language in the brain.
但是，回顾过去，很难责怪人们认为布罗卡区和韦尼克区是语言在大脑中的位置。
They didn't have the techniques we do now for examining brains in living people.
他们没有我们现在所掌握的技术来检测活着的人的大脑。
And connecting specific aphasia symptoms to brain damage is tough because patients tend to have damage to multiple areas and present with a number of overlapping symptoms.
而将特定的失语症症状与脑损伤联系起来是困难的，因为患者往往会在多个区域出现损害，并呈现出许多重叠性症状。
Now, scientists are putting together a more accurate map of the parts of the brain involved in language.
现在，科学家们正在绘制一张更精确的与大脑语言相关部分的地图。
There are still some open questions about how these brain regions work and how they work with each other and other parts of the brain.
关于这些大脑区域是如何工作的，它们如何相互作用，以及大脑的其他部分，仍然存在一些悬而未决的问题。
But we know that there's more to language than these two areas.
但我们知道，这两个区域所负责的远远不止语言。
The upside to this is that even when there's damage to these so-called "language centers", there may still be therapies that can help.
这样做的好处是，即使这些所谓的“语言中心”受损，仍可能有一些治疗方法可以提供帮助。
And ultimately, the more we understand about the neuroscience of language, the closer we'll get to effectively treating all sorts of aphasias.
最终，我们对语言的神经科学了解得越多，就越能有效地治疗各种失语症。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Psych!
感谢收看本期的《心理科学秀》！
And a special thank you to all of our patrons on Patreon, who help ensure the team here at SciShow can keep making educational psychology videos like this one.
特别感谢我们在的Patreon上的所有赞助人，他们帮助确保科学秀团队能继续制作这样的教育心理学视频。
And patrons — we love hearing what you want to learn about through our QQ inbox and our Discord channel.
我们想通过QQ收件箱和Discord频道，了解赞助人想要知道的信息。
So thanks for getting all nerdy with us!
谢谢你们，让所有书呆子和我们待在一起！
If you're not a patron, you can learn more about joining this awesome community at Patreon.com/SciShow.
如果你不是赞助人，可以登陆Patreon.com/SciShow网站，了解加入到这个精彩社区的信息。
