Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • Videos
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Library
    • Research
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • Videos
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Library
    • Research
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture

World-renowned linguist, psychologist looks at how brain comprehends language Nov. 13-14

Tuesday, November 10, 2009, By Rob Enslin
Share
College of Arts and Sciences

One of the world’s leading experts on how the brain comprehends, produces and acquires language—Yosef Grodzinsky—is visiting Syracuse University this week. On Nov. 13-14, the Israeli-born professor will serve as the Andrew W. Mellon Central New York Humanities Corridor Distinguished Visitor in Linguistics. Grodzinsky will deliver a colloquium lecture titled “Brain Maps for Syntax and Semantics,” as well as two specialized talks.

Events are free and open to the public. For more information, call the SU Humanities Center at (315) 443-7192.

Also, Grodzinky will meet with SU students and faculty members on a personal basis. To request an appointment, e-mail Jaklin Kornfilt at Kornfilt@syr.edu.

“Professor Grodzinsky’s research into brain and behavior relations is truly extraordinary. Anyone with an interest in linguistics, psychology and neuroscience will marvel at the extent of his empirical research and the manner by which it has been shaped by new technologies,” says Gregg Lambert, Dean’s Professor of the Humanities, who also directs the SU Humanities Center and Mellon CNY Humanities Corridor.

Grodzinsky’s colloquium lecture will be Friday, Nov. 13, at 2:30 p.m. in Room 107 of the Hall of Languages. Kornfilt, professor of linguistics in SU’s College of Arts and Sciences, says Grodzinsky’s presentation will cover some of the consequences of recent transformations in neurolinguistics. “We now have at our disposal fancy imaging technologies, as well as sophisticated analytical tools to imagine a precise anatomical map of human linguistic ability,” she says, adding that Grodzinsky will pull evidence from healthy and diseased case studies. “He will talk about the many implications of such progress.”

A reception will follow at 4:45 p.m. in room 340 of the H.B. Crouse Building.

On Saturday, Nov. 14, Grodzinsky will deliver two talks in Room 214 of the Hall of Languages. At 10 a.m., he will present “The Blessing of Variation: Syntactic Deficits in Aphasia.” Kornfilt says the growing use of imaging technology in psychological research has created new ways, or variations, of treating patients with aphasia (a language impairment resulting from brain damage). “Variability is a major obstacle to almost any effort to understand how language is represented in the brain,” she says. “Professor Grodzinsky will look at four types of variation found in the language domain—anatomical, behavioral, cross-linguistic and cross-methodoogical—and will give an example or two of each. People will be surprised to learn that once the correct statistical and linguistic tools are applied, variations in aphasia data go away.”

Grodzinsky will give another talk at 2 p.m. titled “A Brain Map for Syntax: Parametric fMRI Experiments in Health.” Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or fMRI, is a type of minimally invasive neuroimagining that measures changes in blood flow in the nervous system. Kornfilt says Grodzinsky will look at why fMRI experiments are carried out and how they impact our understanding of the syntactic homunculus—“the little area in our head that helps us speak and understand language the way we do,” she calls it.

Grodzinky is professor and Canada Research Chair of linguistics at McGill University in Montreal. He also holds dual appointments in psychology at Boston University and Tel Aviv University in Israel. His areas of expertise include neurolinguistics, syntax, comparative aphasiology and functional neuroimaging. He has published dozens of articles and essays, and has co-edited “Broca’s Region” (Oxford University Press, 2006), named for the 19th-century French scientist Paul Broca, who discovered how cognitive functions are localized to certain parts of the cerebral cortex.

  • Author

Rob Enslin

  • Recent
  • Eight New Recruits Begin Campus Peace Officer Academy
    Thursday, May 19, 2022, By Christine Weber
  • Media Tip Sheet: Consequences of China Lockdown
    Thursday, May 19, 2022, By Vanessa Marquette
  • Dean Rajiv ‘Raj’ Dewan to Step Down as Dean of the School of Information Studies
    Thursday, May 19, 2022, By News Staff
  • 2022 Graduates Reflect on Service as Academic Coaches
    Thursday, May 19, 2022, By Ellen de Graffenreid
  • Funding Expands for Newhouse Professors’ Work on Technology to Combat Fake News
    Wednesday, May 18, 2022, By Wendy S. Loughlin

More In Arts & Culture

Syracuse University Art Museum Piloting Object-Based Teaching and Research Faculty Fellows Program

Faculty from all disciplines are invited to apply for a pilot Faculty Fellows Program being hosted this summer by the Syracuse University Art Museum. The program focuses on object-based teaching and research. It is both a way for the art…

Innovator Lorrie Vogel ’88 to Deliver 2022 VPA Convocation Address

Innovator Lorrie Vogel ’88 will deliver the 2022 convocation address to bachelor’s and master’s degree candidates of the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) at the college’s convocation ceremony on Saturday, May 14, at 7:30 p.m. in the stadium….

M.F.A. Exhibition ‘Steady/Retcon’ to be Exhibited on New York City’s Governors Island

  Master of fine arts (M.F.A.) candidates in the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) are presenting the thesis exhibition “Steady/Retcon” over two weekends in May at the Syracuse University Governors Island House, 407A Colonels Row, Governors Island, New…

Department of Drama Presents ‘As You Like It’

The Department of Drama presents the final show of the 2021/2022 season with “As You Like It,” a ravishing new musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic story by Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery. The production, directed by Rodney Hudson, will perform…

Movie Based on SU Press Book ‘Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano’ Debuts

“The Survivor,” a movie based on the Alan Scott Haft book, “Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano,” debuted on HBO and HBO Max on Wednesday, April 27. It is being released on Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorating the…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • @SUCampus
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2022 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.