Where do Cognition, Action, and the Brain meet in East Asian Languages?

Hirofumi Saito Ph.D
Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan

Abstract:
Human communication is traditionally divided into two: verbal behavior and non-verbal behavior, and the former has been sub-categorized as spoken language and written language. These dichotomies bring us some academic productivity in each research field, and at the same time, lead us to a ‘ research divide ' where researchers are likely to lose their locus and neighbors. In like manner, regions of the brain are illustrated as responsible for verbal behavior and non-verbal behavior respectively. However, it is important to remark that the brain functions in binding related regions between verbal and non-verbal behaviors, i.e., closing the cerebral region divide ' . In this lecture, I will introduce three topics to show the way to solve the discrepancy between traditional dichotomies: recognition of Kanji, production of gesture, and brain imaging research. First, I will speak about some research related to the interactive aspects between figurative, phonetic, and semantic processing in Kanji reading by monolingual (Japanese as the first language: L1 Japanese) and bilingual (Japanese as the second language and Chinese as the first language: L1Chinese/L2Japanese). Secondly, I will discuss spontaneous gestures contingent on speech by bilinguals (L1 Japanese/L2 Korean and L1 Korean/L2 Japanese) from a viewpoint of speech motivation and manner when they watch an animated cartoon and narrate it. Finally, I will discuss the current research into brain imaging, especially Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS), as a tool for closing the ‘ research divide ' across verbal and non-verbal behaviors.