Transcript Topic 6 - Universiti Putra Malaysia

LANGUAGE
AND THOUGHT
• WHAT IS LANGUAGE?
• WHAT IS GRAMMAR?
Language..
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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.
Grammar …
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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, illformed sentences
Grammar operates at three levels:
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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
Language
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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?
LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT
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Does language relate to thoughts?
How are they related?
Piaget, Whorf and Vygotsky views on
the relationship between language and
thoughts are different
Language & Thoughts
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Piaget
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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
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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.
Relationship Between Language
and Thoughts
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Vygotsky
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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.
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But when language is acquired, children will use it to
represent their thoughts.
Relationship Between Language
and Thoughts
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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.
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What do you think????
Relationship Between Language
and Thoughts
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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.
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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
variables such as:
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Perceptual discrimination
Availability in memory
Classification
look into cognitive
Sapir-Whorf’s Linguistic Relativity
Hypothesis
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What is Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis?
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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.
What is Sapir-Whorf’s Linguistic
Relativity Hypothesis
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Also popularly known as the Sapir–Whorf
hypothesis or Whorfianism, where Edward Sapir
and Benjamin Whorf’s hypothesis of linguistic
relativity holds that the language we speak both
affects and reflects our view of the world.
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The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis theorizes that
thoughts and behavior are influences by
language, which are determined by the
individual culture and community.
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Showed that language is the medium by which
one views the world, culture, reality and thoughts.
Sapir-Whorf’s Hypothesis
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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”.
Sapir-Whorf’s Hypothesis
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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.
Sapir-Whorf’s Hypothesis
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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;
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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
Critics on Sapir-Whorf’s Hypothesis
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Researchers have argued and debated about the
following three positions in relation to Sapir-Whorf’s
Hypothesis:1. Language heavily influences thoughts (strong
interpretation)
2. Language does not influence thoughts
3. Language partially influence thoughts (weak
interpretation)
Language heavily influences
thoughts
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Whorf’s strongly suggested that thoughts is based
on language  his hypothesis was supported
from his research on Native American language.
Critics on his finding:
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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.
Language does not influence thoughts
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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
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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-Whorf’s
that claim all culture see the world differently due to their language.)
Sapir-Whorf’s Hypothesis: Language
partially influence thoughts
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Most researcher find it difficult to conclude that
language determine thoughts – but through examples
from Whorf’s 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!!
Social & Cultural Influences
on Language & Thoughts
How do we acquire communication
skills in our everyday life?
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Through interaction and context with other
people…..
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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.
Social Interactionist Theory
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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.
Social Interactionist Theory
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Since its emergence few years ago, the Social Interactionist
approach to language acquisition research has focused on
three areas:
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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”.
Social Interactionist Theory
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Social Interactionist Theory focuses on the
pragmatics of language rather than grammar
(which should come later).
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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:
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The interaction of communicative functions.
The influence of the child’s world
Social Interactionist Theory
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According to SIT, children learn verbal and
nonverbal communicative behavior from
adults around them.
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Cth…verbal?
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.
Social Interactionist Theory
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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.
SCL: Discuss
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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?
MEMORY,
PERCEPTION &
LANGUAGE
What is Memory?
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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.
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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.
What is Memory?
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3 processes occur in remembering:
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perception and registering of a stimulus;
temporary maintenance of the perception, or
short-term memory;
lasting storage of the perception, or long-term
memory.
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Two major types of long-term memory are procedural
memory, involving the recall of learned skills, and
declarative memory, the remembrance of specific
stimuli.
What is Perception?
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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."
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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.
Perception Is Subjective
Internal Information
•Prior Expectations
•Current Mental State
•Experience
External Information
•Actual Words/Actions
•Image Reflected from Objects
•“Sound” Waves
Both Determine
Our Experience
of the World
Language
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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?
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.
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