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Language Is Important For Survival

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Introduction
Language is important for survival. Everyone needs it to communicate with one another and understand them. Without language, one can survive but it would be a lonely one. Language can be broken up into two parts: literal and non-literal. Literal language means the original meaning behind the words for example: ‘I am happy’. Whereas non-literal language means the figurative meaning behind the words for example: ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’ which means it’s raining very heavily. A long-lasting argument revolves around the question to what extent figurative language processing is different qualitatively from literal language processing (e.g., Coulson, 2006). Early clinical experiments with aphasic and brain-damaged patients suggested that despite the well-established LH language dominance in most right-handed people the RH is essential for understanding metaphors as well as for their esthetic categorization (Winner & Gardner, 1977). A TMS-study also reported a causal relationship between activity of the right posterior temporal sulcus (pSTS) and the interpretation of novel metaphors (Pobric, Mashal, Faust, & Lavidor, 2008). Though the others did not find selective RH activations for non-literal language (Boulenger, Hauk, & Pulvermüller, 2009; Mashal, Faust, Hendler, & Jung-Beeman, 2009; Rapp, Leube, Erb, Grodd, & Kircher, 2004; Rapp, Leube, Erb, Grodd, & Kircher, 2007; Lee & Dapretto, 2006). Some studies with patients who suffered from unilateral brain damage

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