Topic 6: LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT

1
Topic 6LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT
2

• WHAT IS LANGUAGE?
• WHAT IS GRAMMAR?

3
Language..

• Language is
• a set of (finite and infinate) sentences.
  Each is finite in length and constructed
  out of a finite set of elements (chomsky,
  1957)
• A collection of symbols with rules and
  collectively they can create an infinite
  variety of messages ?i.e. a system of symbols
  and rules that enable us to communicate.
• The systematic, meaningful arrangement of symbols
  ? according to rules to create a message
  that has a common meaning for users and
  recipients.

4
Grammer

• The grammar of a language is the complete set of
  rules that will generate or produce all the
  acceptable sentences and will not generate any
  unacceptable, ill-formed sentences
• Grammar operates at three levels
• Phonology of language deals with the sounds of
  language
• Syntax deals with word order and grammaticality
• And semantics deals with accessing and combining
  the separate word meanings into a sensible
  meaningful whole

5
Language

• Human interact with each other using
  LANGUAGE.
• There are many language around the world,
  depending on different region and culture.
• Since there are many different words
  grammer involved in a language, so how do human
  understand each other?

6
LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT

• Does language relate to thoughts?
• How are they related?
• Piaget, Whorf and Vygotsky views on the
  relationship between language and thoughts
  are different

7
Language Thoughts

• Piaget
• Language development depend on mental
  development, i.e. before a person is able to
  learn a word and use it grammatically, one
  must first develop the mental concept of the
  word.
• Whorf
• Thoughts is express in language? i.e. A person
  language ability could limit or shaped his/her
  thoughts.
• Language provide the categorical distinctions or
  bounderies between things ? and guide what
  conceptual features or characteristics a person
  can acquire.

8
Relationship Between Language and Thoughts

• Vygotsky
• Language thoughts are not intrinsically
  linked ? but since they come from the same
  source (cognitive process) or mind , they would
  surely influence one another.
• Infant not able to understand language in the
  beginning , but later through interaction with
  its environment (parents/adult) they will later
  do so.
• But when language is acquired, children will
  use it to represent their thoughts.

9
Relationship Between Language and Thoughts

• Many researchers were interested to study the
  relationship between Language and thoughts
  (thinking).
• Many feels that Language (most important
  tool in communication) cannot be seperated
  from thought.
• What do you think????

10
Relationship Between Language and Thoughts

• According to Plato, both thoughts language
  originate from an abstract concept called
  forms and which all the entities
  qualities designated thereby can be
  subsumed(Gill, 1977).
• Wilhelm Von Humboldt, stated that language
  determines many aspect of thoughts.
• Humboldt viewed language as the expression of the
  spirit of a nation.
• According to Humboldt, the diversity of
  languages is not a diversity of signs and sounds
  but a diversity of views of the world.
• Many other researchers also look into
  cognitive variables such as
• Perceptual discrimination
• Availability in memory
• Classification

11
Sapir-Whorfs Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis

• What is Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis?
• Linguistic relativity is the idea that
  differences in the way languages encode cultural
  and cognitive categories affect the way people
  think ? so that speakers of different languages
  will tend to think and behave differently
  depending on the language they use.
• Human Cognitive classification is affected
  by the different cultural concepts and
  categories that are inbuilt in different
  language ? therefore different people from
  different countries think behave
  differently because of the cognitive
  classification.

12
What is Sapir-Whorfs Linguistic Relativity
Hypothesis

• Also popularly known as the SapirWhorf
  hypothesis or Whorfianism, where Edward Sapir and
  Benjamin Whorfs hypothesis of linguistic
  relativity holds that the language we speak both
  affects and reflects our view of the world.
• The SapirWhorf hypothesis theorizes that
  thoughts and behavior are influences by
  language, which are determined by the
  individual culture and community.
• Showed that language is the medium by
  which one views the world, culture, reality
  and thoughts.

13
Sapir-Whorfs Hypothesis

• Edward Sapir agree with Humbold idea that
  languages contained the key to understanding the
  differing world views of peoples.
• According to Sapir
• Since there are differences in the grammatical
  systems of languages, no two languages were ever
  similar enough to allow for perfect translation
  between them.
• because language represented reality differently,
  it followed that the speakers of different
  languages would perceive reality differently.
  According to Edward Sapir
• Thus. No two languages are ever sufficiently
  similar to be considered as representing the same
  social reality. The worlds in which different
  societies live are distinct worlds, not merely
  the same world with different labels attached.

14
Sapir-Whorfs Hypothesis

• Sapir never did suggest how languages affected
  the thought processes of their speakers the
  notion of linguistic relativity? but it was
  taken up by his student Benjamin Lee Whorf.
• Whorf introduced "the principle of linguistic
  relativity ? i.e., instead of merely assuming
  that language influences the thought and behavior
  of its speakers, he further analyzed the
  native american languages, and attempted to
  account for the ways in which differences in
  grammatical systems and language use affected the
  way their speakers perceived the world.

15
Sapir-Whorfs Hypothesis

• Example in which Whorf attempted to show that
  language use affects behavior, where the
  indigenous language has several terms for a
  concept that is only described with one word in
  English and other European languages
• Water (Hopi language describes water with two
  different words for drinking water in a container
  versus a natural body of water)
• Snow (Inuit language) - refers to many meaning
• The varying cultural concepts and categories
  inherent in different languages affect the
  cognitive classification of the experienced world
  in such a way that speakers of different
  languages think and behave differently because of
  it.
• Language you know shapes the way you think about
  events in the world around you

16
Critics on Sapir-Whorfs Hypothesis

• Researchers have argued and debated about
  the following three positions in relation
  to Sapir-Whorfs Hypothesis-
• Language heavily influences thoughts
  (strong interpretation)
• Language does not influence thoughts
• Language partially influence thoughts (weak
  interpretation)

17
Language heavily influences thoughts

• Whorfs strongly suggested that thoughts
  is based on language ? his hypothesis was
  supported from his research on Native
  American language.
• Critics on his finding
• solely based on is study of Native
  American conclude the cognitive differences
  between two languages only English Hopi/
  etc.
• Even though many researchers agreed with
  Whorf that thought language is clearly
  dependent on each other, ? but still felt
  that the findings were not successful in
  showing the relationship between language
  thoughts.

18
Language does not influence thoughts

• Many researchers agreed that Language does
  not influence thoughts ? on 3 main key
  points-
• Translatability
• Although language may vary in terms of ways of
  expressing certain details ? but it is
  still possible to translate the detail from
  language to another
• Differences between linguistic non
  linguistic.
• Lenneberg argued that there is no means to
  define language as influencing thoughts, when
  there is no differences between them (i.e.
  Language thoughts) especially when the
  evidence that suport the hypothesis is
  solely based on linguistic differences
• Universals
• Based on Chomsky the concept of universal,
  i.e. there are deep structures that are
  common to all language. Therefore all
  cultures would be related dan have similar
  realities (contrast to Sapir-Whorfs that
  claim all culture see the world differently
  due to their language.)

19
Sapir-Whorfs Hypothesis Language partially
influence thoughts

• Most researcher find it difficult to
  conclude that language determine thoughts
  but through examples from Whorfs study,
  they agreed that
• Its valid to suggest ? partially language
  does determine thoughts.
• According to Wierzbicka (1992), the question
  is not whether language affect thoughts
  ? but to what extent that it affect
  thinking!!

20
(No Transcript)
21
Social Cultural Influences on Language
Thoughts
22
How do we acquire communication skills in
our everyday life?

• Through interaction and context with other
  people..
• Within the same community.
• Within the same culture.
• Many researcher are aware of the importance
  or OTHER PEOPLE (within the same
  society/culture) on individual language and
  thoughts development.

23
Social Interactionist Theory

• Social Interactionist Theory emphasize the
  importance of environment and the context in
  which the language is being learned as a
  determinant to language acquisition.
• According to Snow (1981), the interaction
  between a child and a caregiver, plus
  biological and environmental influence ? is
  responsible for the development and
  acquisition of language among children.

24
Social Interactionist Theory

• Since its emergence few years ago, the Social
  Interactionist approach to language acquisition
  research has focused on three areas
• cognitive approach to language acquisition
  process or the developmental cognitive theory of
  Piaget.
• the information processing approach or the
  information processing model of MacWhinney
  Bates (the competition model)
• Social interactionist approach or social
  interaction model of Vygotsky (socio-cultural
  theory).
• Although the initial research attempt to describe
  language development from the stand point of the
  social development ? but recently, researchers
  have been attempting to explain few varieties of
  acquisition in which how learner factors lead to
  differential acquisitions among learners by the
  process of socialization ? and this is called
  the theory of social interactionist approach.

25
Social Interactionist Theory

• Social Interactionist Theory focuses on the
  pragmatics of language rather than grammar (which
  should come later).
• In this approach, the beginning speaker and the
  experienced speaker (either a child adult or
  second-language learner fluent speaker) ? exist
  in a negotiated arrangement where feedback is
  always possible.
• The general elements of this theory
• The interaction of communicative functions.
• The influence of the childs world

26
Social Interactionist Theory

• According to SIT, children learn verbal
  and nonverbal communicative behavior from
  adults around them.
• Cthverbal?
• Cth nonverbal..?
• So, children how to behave and speak politely
  (impolite way) how to communicate with
  their community (in a society) based on
  their interaction with adults.

27
Social Interactionist Theory

• Therefore, the rules for communicative
  competence are influenced by social and
  cultural factors.
• Certain words that may be appropriate for
  one culture/ society ? may not be appropriate
  or acceptable in another culture.
  Examples..??????
• Rules of a particular society/culture help in the
  development of beliefs values, as can be
  seen from our communicative behavior.
• Why is this rules important?
• Helps to teach guide our action and
  interaction in our environment.
• A person socialization practices are being
  enhances and strengthened through social
  interaction ? based on individual cultural
  differences.

28
SCL Discuss

• Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis
• Think about the application of linguistic
  relativity hypothesis in your own language and
  culture
• Give examples of objects that are describe in
  detail in your language
• How culture can be transmitted from one
  individual to another?
• Think of a word/sentence that may not be
  acceptable to another culture or society?
  

29
MEMORY, PERCEPTION LANGUAGE
30
What is Memory?

• Memory ? the storing of learned information, and
  the ability to recall that which has been stored.
• The mental faculty of retaining and recalling
  past experience.
• Power or process of recalling or reproducing what
  has been learned or experienced.
• Research indicates that the ability to retain
  information is fairly uniform among normal
  individuals? what differs is the degree to which
  persons learn or take account of something to
  begin with and the kind and amount of detail that
  is retained.

31
What is Memory?

• 3 processes occur in remembering
• perception and registering of a stimulus
• temporary maintenance of the perception, or
  short-term memory
• lasting storage of the perception, or long-term
  memory.
• Two major types of long-term memory are
  procedural memory, involving the recall of
  learned skills, and declarative memory, the
  remembrance of specific stimuli.

32
What is Perception?

• In psychology and the cognitive sciences,
  perception is the process of acquiring,
  interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory
  information.
• The word perception comes from the Latin
  perception-, percepio, , meaning "receiving,
  collecting, action of taking possession,
  apprehension with the mind or senses."

33

• Many cognitive psychologists hold that, as we
  move about in the world, we create a model of how
  the world works, i.e. we sense the objective
  world, but our sensations map to percepts, and
  these percepts are provisional, in the same sense
  that scientific hypotheses are provisional (cf.
  in the scientific method).
• As we acquire new information, our percepts shift.

34
Perception Is Subjective
35
Language

• What is language?
• How do we understand language?
• How do we create meaning from linguistic symbols
  (such as words)?
• How does our experience guide the way we
  comprehend and produce language?

36
Is memory, perception language related?

• Memory is a critical component of many aspects of
  human thinking, including perception, learning,
  language problem solving.
• How does language conveys meaning?
• the comprehension of language is grounded in our
  own bodies' systems of perception and action
  planning. Eg
• Understanding a sentence - "He turned up the
  volume on his stereo," requires the use of one's
  action planning system to internally do the
  action involved in turning up the stereo (rotate
  the volume knob in a clockwise direction).
• Memory - a person will remember the action
  involved
• Visual/auditory Perception need memory to
  interpret
• Language comprehension ? experience shapes the
  relationship between perception, action, and
  language.