This Is Your Brain on Bard

While listening to my favorite podcast for word dorks, "A Way With Words," they mentioned a study done in the UK about effect that Shakespeare's interesting use of language had on the brains of the audience.

The whole article is located on Physorg.com, but I've clipped some quotes below:

Shakespeare uses a linguistic technique known as functional shift that involves, for example using a noun to serve as a verb. Researchers found that this technique allows the brain to understand what a word means before it understands the function of the word within a sentence. This process causes a sudden peak in brain activity and forces the brain to work backwards in order to fully understand what Shakespeare is trying to say.

Professor Philip Davis, from the University's School of English, said: "The brain reacts to reading a phrase such as ‘he godded me' from the tragedy of Coriolanus, in a similar way to putting a jigsaw puzzle together. If it is easy to see which pieces slot together you become bored of the game, but if the pieces don't appear to fit, when we know they should, the brain becomes excited. By throwing odd words into seemingly normal sentences, Shakespeare surprises the brain and catches it off guard in a manner that produces a sudden burst of activity - a sense of drama created out of the simplest of things."

This really points to the central concept I'm beginning to dive into: the impact a creatively coded message has on the receiver.