Transcript EXPLORING PSYCHOLOGY (7th Edition in Modules) David Myers

Language and Thought
Module 24
Language is so powerful
that is has “…produced a
species that transcends
apehood to the same
degree by which life
transcends mundane
chemistry and physics.”
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran The
Tell Tale Brain pg. xv
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QR code for 23 24 25
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Thinking, Language, &
Intelligence Overview
Language and Thought
 Language Development
 Thinking and Language
 Animal Thinking and Language
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Language and Thought
Language, our spoken, written, or gestured
work, is the way we communicate meaning
to ourselves and others.
M. & E. Bernheim/ Woodfin Camp & Associates
AM Language
development #6
Language transmits culture.
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Language Structure
Phonemes: The smallest distinct sound unit in a
spoken language. For example:
bat, has three phonemes b · a · t
chat, has three phonemes ch · a · t
Languages have these sounds in common
She has mastered the Phonemes but not the
meaning…Ken Lee vid 1:14
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Language Structure
Morpheme: The smallest unit that carries
a meaning. It may be a word or part of a
word. For example:
Milk = milk
Pumpkin = pump . kin
Unforgettable = un · for · get · table
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Grammar
Grammar is the system of rules in a language
that enable us to communicate with and
understand others.
Grammar
Semantics
Syntax
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Language
 Semantics
 the set of rules by which we derive meaning
from morphemes, words, and sentences in
a given language
 also, the study of meaning
 Syntax - Grammar
 the rules for combining words into
grammatically sensible sentences in a
given language
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• Rapid bouquets deter
sudden neighbors.
• …syntactically correct but not semantically
correct.
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In all the 6,000 languages in the world, only
about 14 different syntaxes are employed
and the vast majority fit within 4 styles, again
supporting Chomsky's views.
Dr. Sapolsky Stanford University
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Language Development
Deb Roy Birth of a word at TED 19:52
Time Life Pictures/ Getty Images
Children learn much of
their native languages
before learning to add
2+2.
We learn, on average
(after age 1), 3,500 words
a year, amassing 60,000
words by the time we
graduate from high
school.
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Words in English?
• With variants ~750,000
• Smart and educated people may use
as many as 60,000 English words, or
about 7.5% of the entire English
vocabulary.
• We use remarkably little of it…
– Ten simple words account for 25
percent of all English speech
– 50 words account for 60 percent
– 1,500 to 2,000 words account for 99
percent of all that Americans say
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Language
 We are all born to recognize speech sounds
from all the world’s languages
Percentage able 100
to discriminate
90
Hindi t’s
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
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Infant speech
sound
discrimination
0
Hindispeaking
adults
6-8
months
8-10
months
10-12
months
Infants from English-speaking homes
Englishspeaking
adults 16
Language
 Babbling Stage (pre-linguistic event)
Babbling twins
 beginning at 3 to 4 months
 the stage of speech development in which
the infant spontaneously utters various
sounds at first unrelated to the household
language Linguistic Genius of babies at TED 10:18
 One-Word Stage
 from about age 1 to 2
 the stage in speech development during
which a child speaks mostly in single words17
Language
 Two-Word Stage
 beginning about age 2
 the stage in speech development during
which a child speaks in mostly two-word
statements
 Telegraphic Speech
 early speech stage in which the child
speaks like a telegram-–“go car”--using
mostly nouns and verbs and omitting
“auxiliary” words
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Language
Summary of Language Development
Month
(approximate)
Stage
4
Babbles many speech sounds.
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Babbling reveals households
language.
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One-word stage.
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Two-word, telegraphic speech.
24+
Language develops rapidly into
complete sentences.
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Explaining Language Development
1. Operant Learning: Skinner (1957, 1985)
believed that language development may be
explained on the basis of learning principles
such as association, imitation, and
reinforcement.
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Explaining Language Development
cont.
2. Inborn Universal Grammar: Chomsky (1959,
1987) opposed Skinner’s ideas and suggested
that the rate of language acquisition is so fast
that it cannot be explained through learning
principles, and thus most of it is inborn.
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Explaining Language Development
Childhood is a critical
period for fully
developing certain
aspects of language.
Children never
exposed to any
language (spoken or
signed) by about age 7
gradually lose their
ability to master any
language.
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Critical Period
Learning new languages gets
harder with age.
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Michael Newman/ Photo Edit, Inc.
David Hume Kennerly/ Getty Images
Eye of Science/ Photo Researchers, Inc.
Genes, Brain, & Language
Genes design the mechanisms for a
language, and experience modifies the brain.
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Language Influences Thinking
Linguistic Determinism
(Whorf hypothesis):
language determines the way
we think.
For example, he noted that
the Hopi people do not have
the past tense for verbs.
Therefore, the Hopi cannot
think readily about the past.
Link
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“….It turns out that people in southern
Africa, the cradle of humanity, not only
have richer DNA than anyone else but
richer languages, with up to one hundred
distinct sounds,…”
-Sam Kean
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Language Influences Thinking
When a language provides words for objects or events,
we can think about these objects more clearly and
remember them. It is easier to think about two colors
with two different names (A) than colors with the same
name (B) (Özgen, 2004).
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"While we think ourselves the masters
of language, precisely the opposite is
true. Language is the master of us, a
tyranny from which no escape can be
imagined.“
-Pesce
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Adjectives and Taste
• Studies show that flowery modifiers not
only tempt people to order the lyrically
described foods but also lead them to rate
those foods as tasting better than the
identical foods given only a generic listing.
• “Salad” vs. “A Melange of Local Greens”
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Try it…
Sketch this picture into your notes.
• The girl pushes the boy.
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Word Power
Increasing word power pays its
dividends. It helps explain the
bilingual advantage of bilingual
children to inhibit one language while
using another.
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Thinking in Images
To a large extent thinking is language-based.
When alone, we may talk to ourselves. However,
we also think in images.
We don’t think in words, when:
1. When we open the hot water tap.
2. When we are riding our bicycle.
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Images and Brain
Imagining a physical activity activates the same
brain regions as when actually performing the
activity.
Jean Duffy Decety, September 2003
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Language and Thinking
Thinking effects language, language effects
thinking
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Do Animals Exhibit Language?
There is no doubt that
animals communicate.
Rico (collie) has a
200-word vocabulary
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Copyright Baus/ Kreslowski
Vervet monkeys,
whales and even honey
bees communicate
with members of their
species and other
species.
Animal Culture
Animals display customs and culture that are
learned and transmitted over generations.
Michael Nichols/ National Geographic Society
Copyright Amanda K Coakes
Dolphins using sponges as
forging tools.
Chimpanzee mother using and
teaching a young how to use
a stone hammer. Link 48
Tickle me!
• All those chimps who get trained
in American Sign Language, one
of the first words they master is
"tickle" and one of the first
sentences is "tickle me.”
• Dr. Robert Sapolsky
• Link Tickle me at 1:25
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Conclusions
If we say that animals can use meaningful
sequences of signs to communicate a capability
for language, our understanding would be
naive…
Steven Pinker (1995) concludes, “chimps do not
develop language.”
“Asking whether language is mainly nurture is
as silly as asking whether the saltiness of table
salt comes mainly from chlorine or mainly from
sodium.” Vilayanur S. Ramachandran The Tell Tale Brain pg. 170
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EXPLORING
PSYCHOLOGY
(7th Edition in Modules)
David Myers
PowerPoint Slides
Aneeq Ahmad
Henderson State University
Worth Publishers, © 2008
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Pinker on language and thought
• http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/steven_
pinker_on_language_and_thought.html
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English is a weird language
• How about potato:
ghowghteighteough
Gh/ow/ght/eigh/te/oug
h
p as in
hiccough
o as in snow
t as in thought
a as in sleigh
t as in bite
o as in although
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“ghoti” spells what?
• FISH
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Language
• “The limits of your language mean the
limits of your world.”
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