Cognitive studies and neurolinguistics: modern state and perspectives of future studies

The main approaches of cognitive neurolinguistics were reviewed in the paper. Cognitive linguistics studies brain mechanisms of speech processing and speech generation in their interrelation with human cognition. Fundamental neurolinguistic ideas were formulated within philosophy of language. However, philosophy of language is not uniform. There are several different methodological approaches. In particular, such directions as structuralism, formalism and philosophy of activity could be differentiated from each other. Each of these approaches of philosophy of language was applied in empirical neurolinguistics. Structuralism concentrates on studies of the phonologic, syntactic and semantic relations in speech stimuli. Besides, structuralism is focused on researching the communicative function of speech. Within neurolinguistics it conducts research of brain processes connected with recognition of speech structures in various languages. The main attention of researchers is focused on the analysis of relationships between the language structure and structure of brain connections. Also, features of speech structure under conditions of brain pathologies are studied in this approach. The disorder of brain structure is considered as a reason of structural disorder in speech. Formalism sets the purpose of creating an "ideal" language and comparing it with a natural language. This philosophical direction is aimed at elaboration of special artificial languages with fixed syntactical rules. In neurolinguistics it leads to comparison of brain processes during natural languages and quasi-language symbols (mathematics, music, programming languages) perception. Activity approach is aimed at researching language pragmatics, i.e. language role in real human life. In this approach distinction between communicative and cognitive speech functions is postulated. In neurolinguistics this direction led to the study of the role of extra-language context in formation and realization of brain mechanisms of speech activity. In particular, the influence of social-cultural context on development and compensation of speech-related pathologies at neurologic disorders is studied in this approach. A special problem of activity approach is in study of speech function in regulation of behavior. Thus, basic distinctions in philosophical understanding of language lead to emergence of several independent directions of empirical researches.

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