Notes
� Language and thought tutorial
Greg Detre
Tuesday, 10 October, 2000
Notes from Emma�s sheet, �Readings in L&C�
Notes from �Selected
writings of Benjamin Whorf�
Notes from Pinker, �The
language instinct�, re Whorf
Notes from Piaget, �The
origin of intelligence in the child�
Notes from Vygotsky,
�Thought and language�
1. Is there a place for linguistic determinism in psycholinguistic theory today?
2. Evaluate the view that any final account of the relationship between language and cognition is unlikely to be forthcoming because of the methodological difficulties involved in reaching definitive conclusions.
forthcoming � ever?
3. �Cross-linguistic variation in colour vocabularies remain one of the most convincing examples of linguistic relativity.� Evaluate.
4. �If language as a symbolic function is not innate, then cognition must play a primary role in the development of language.� Evaluate.
The topic �Language & thought� is about how linguistic and cognitive processes interact with each other.
linguistic determinism = the language we speak determines the way we think
cognitive determinism = language is purely a means of expressing pre-structured cognitions
Many studies were trying to demonstrate the role of language in moulding basic thought processes (e.g. memory, perception and problem-solving)
no one specifically claims that language is determined by cognition
Piaget: elaborated the role of sensori-motor skills in the development of a symbolic capacity
cognitive anthropology: emphasises the role of biological + cognitive factors in the lexical structure of language
interactionism = the interactive aspects of language and cognition
although 2 distinct processing domains are generally recognised, they are interpreted as interacting in such a fashion that they bootstrap each other to higher levels of complexity
Whorf was very interested in Hopi (Arizona), Aztec, Maya and other (American) Indian languages. chemical engineer at MIT, held down day job as fire insurance/prevention officer
His ideas originated from his respect for Fabre d�Olivet�s work which characterised certain Hebrew letters as having connotations (e.g. stability). This led him to posit that the Amerindian languages were fundamentally different from �Standard Average European� languages. He believed that the Amerindian languages are �oligosynthetic�, i.e. they are comprised of just 35 root fundamental element ideas which underly the whole language. Extending these lexical differences to differences in grammatical structure grew into the theory of linguistic relativity with Sapir.
He believed that the Hopi�s language was more precise and less misleading in its grammar + terminology than English, and better fitted a modern physicists understanding of the Cosmos (e.g. in terms of: �slosh� vs �wave�, a piece of land�s purpose , no subject-predicate distinctions, the Hopi language always includes both space and time and neither is found alone in his world view)
2 major premises of �linguistic relativist�:
language shapes/dictates??? higher thought
the structure of your language influences the way you understand your environment (and behave in it)
�the picture of the Universe (Cosmos) shifts from tongue to tongue� � foreword, Stuart Chase)
He hoped this would allow us to better understand cultural differences, rather than excuse them, and even considered building a universal language which transcended the gulfs between people�s perceptions of reality caused by language structure.
2 sharp critics of Whorf�s methodology and conclusions were Lenneberg and Feuer. Lenneberg criticises Whorf�s translation techniques used to demonstrate differences in languages, e.g. just because two languages describe an event very differently does not mean that they have a different way of seeing that event; it might simply be because the language has developed in one direction (e.g. we are unaware that �breakfast� comes from literally �breaking a fast�). Lenneberg also points out the need to neutrally and separately describe linguistic and no-linguistic events before correlating them and scientific evidence of association between them has to be provided. Otherwise, the argument for linguistic relativity is circular/tautological if the evidence pointing to the differences in �world view� on the basis of language structures is the differences in language structures. Feuer also claims that our perceptions of reality cannot differ greatly, because a wholly incorrect perception of reality, i.e. our environment, would not give us much chance at survival. However, this seems a weak criticism, since many of the differences Whorf points to, especially some of the subtler praises of Hopi language structure, are not differences which would affect our survival. They relate to our perception of the �Cosmos� (to use Whorf�s term), rather than our internal representation of the immediate environment.
Brown and Lenneberg (1954) showed that differences in our ability to recognise and remember colours were associated with availability of specific colour names. This demonstrates but a weak form of linguistic relativity, since it directly relates a simple lack of vocabulary with elementary perception. In the same way, we might not expect a caveman to be able to remember or distinguish between a truck and a car. Perhaps though, familiarity and a simple understanding of their separate functions would help, as would being taught separate words for them. A large vocabulary forces fine distinctions upon us, but Whorf�s stronger form of linguistic relativity emphasised grammatical structure, a much finer and potentially more fundamental influence on cognition.
this implies somehow that speakers of certain languages are robbed of the biological capacity to perceive these different colours �
It is not made clear how our knowledge of language could somehow affect the connection� between our retina and visual cortex, or wherever in our brains is affected. how could such a subtle physiological change result from the vocabulary of the language we speak
moreover, the if we experiment on the 8 most common colour words, the order of likelihood that a language has a word for a colour mirrors exactly the ease with which our eyes appear to be able to perceive and learn to identify that colour
experiments over the years appear to demonstrate that subject are better at identifying the colour of different paint chips from memory if a word in their language approximates the colour � this makes sense if we imagine that a linguistic and visual memory both together are more reliable than one without the other
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Pinker points out that perhaps the most chilling legacy of Orwell�s 1984 is Newspeak, the delicately crafted, stunted language where every term, idiom and phrase has been robbed of connotations damaging to the Party. The premise is that without the means to formulate antithetical expressions and concepts in words, the populace would be robbed of the means to even think of such notions. This brings a chilling concreteness to linguistic determinism.
Pinker draws attention to the pivotal phrase, �At least so far as thought is dependent on words�. Orwell is perhaps overstating the case for Newspeak when he considers that the connotations of intellectual and political freedom can be eradicated and lost forever from the word, �free�, in the same way that �queen� and �rook� fail to conjure up checkerboards to someone who has never played chess. This sets the stage for the warring factions of linguistic and cognitive determinism, and their less extreme variations.
An alternative escape lies in the idea of a language of thought, or �mentalese�. It could be that mentalese is our true mother tongue, but requires translation into words that can be articulated by our vocal cords.
After all, how could we mean to say something slightly differently to the words we use if language and thought are inseparable and unmediated? How could we translate from one language to the other or remember the gist of a text or speech without remembering it verbatim? The answer lies in our internal representations, which need not be stored in our spoken language, or even in a mentalese. We know that at a low level they are stored by long-term potentiation as synaptic weights, but we don�t know how the brain�s structure aggregates up to a higher level, i.e. how the neural maps to the conceptual level. So we could of course say that, in a sense, the existence of mentalese is a certainty, if we choose to see the digital firing patterns of our neurons as its vocalisation. Like an insanely complex series of bushman�s clicks, our brain forms as an aggregate a silent electrochemical voice box, communicating internally at colossal bandwidth. However, the term �mentalese� usually refers to a high-level representation of concepts and propositions which can be translated back and forth into words.
If some form of mentalese is the way we form words from thoughts, everyone�s inner speech is phrased in this same invisible, behind-the-scenes mental language, and attempting translation from it into restrictive Newspeak will result in a mute but fully-comprehending populace. But not for long.
Pinker gives various examples of creoles being born adult from fledgling pidgin dialects in the space of a single generation. This is strong evidence that human languages grow to full maturity and complexity, however stunted and restrictive their birth may be. This is the second cause for hope that the Oxford English Dictionary could not one day stage a totalitarian coup simply by repressing the means to vocalise rebellion. Though the emergence of writing was a laborious, multi-step process requiring luck, genius and circumstance to gestate, spoken language seems to well up irrepressible and rich wherever humans congregate. Though the extent of universality and differences between human languages is highly debatable, some genetic predisposition to learn or form human language seems incontestable.
� � Does this leave us with hope that Newspeak, were it to exist and be imposed upon us, could really quench fires in our minds by starving them of the lexical oxygen to burn? It does, on the two counts considered above. Strong linguistic determinism, where the vocabulary (and grammar) we use determines the paths and boundaries of our thought can be largely discounted. A weaker form of linguistic determinism, such as Whorf�s linguistic relativity, would be sufficient to colour our picture of the Cosmos, but insufficient to remove the means to think heretical thoughts. Moreover, it seems likely that a language as deficient as Newspeak must surely succomb to untraceable, effervescent neologisms and idioms which grow to capture the expressive niche of the day. As for mentalese, the evidence for an accessible, universal, comprehensible high-level encoding of linguistic concepts is small � it may be that methodological difficulties bar us from knowing definitively.
Having dismissed the case for strong linguistic determinism, is there case for the weaker form, which we shall term �linguistic relativity�, borrowing Benjamin Whorf�s phrase. We will first understand his use of the term, before discussing alternative forms which linguistic relativity might take. picture of the universe
other forms of linguistic determinism. Pinker lists politicians� euphemisms for war, taxes
political correctness � unable to directly address certain issues
gender, e.g. �mankind�
General Semantics � e.g. distinguishes between John1972 and John2000 � it is only the habit of labelling that language lulls us into that misleads us into mistakenly lumping the two together � this robs us of our personal identity, for as Heraclitus points out, �We never step into the same river twice� - philosophers from Locke to Strawson have wrestled with this question, uniting us variously by our physical bodies, our memories and stream of consciousness, God etc.
�to be� causes generalisations (and evasions of responsibility)
the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity holds that our conceptual space is mapped, shaped and bounded by our language structure
The Eskimos� supposed twenty words for snow � but surely the language (the phylogenesis) grew up from the constraints of reality (hence this particular idiosyncracy of Eskimo), though each person�s grasp of it (ontogenesis) will shape their own thought � and we all share fundamentally the same reality, and should largely expect our languages to have converged in similar directions. Just as an individual person�s personality is shaped by the dimensions and condition of his/her physical body, while sharing the same DNA and race with those geographically close, so does our individual grasp of language shape us even as we share it with others. language and genes differ across cultures, but need we expect our different languages to affect our conception of reality any more than our racially differing genes do?
bring in: the language tree may also be similar to the gene tree (Luigi Cavalli-Sforza)
the mysterious Hopi conception of time appears to be a misconception � don�t know how Whorf maintained his wholly wrong-headed view about a culture with advanced calendars, knotted ropes to represent days passing and other expected chronological paraphernalia
Alfred Bloom�s experiment intended to demonstrate that the the Chinese language�s lack of any basic grammatical construction mirroring the subjunctive means that the Chinese have great difficulty understanding counterfactual situations is another straw man. Researchers have since criticised the experiment on the basis of the standard of the Chinese in the story he used, and ambiguities in the science mentioned. Unsurprisingly, the results have been shown to be invalid by more recent experiments.
Vygotsky, sometimes known as the �father of Soviet psychology�, worked in psychology in the early half of the twentieth century. Coming from a background of literature, the arts and philosophy (with medicine), he was able to see as an outsider a methodological �crisis� in psychology. The behaviourist, reflexologist, Gestalt and Marxist views vied with each other, allowing empirical data to be explained by suppositions which soon came to be seen almost as axiomatic fact. He discouraged looking for a third way between what he saw as the emerging gulfs of (naturalistic, scientific) behaviourism and (humanistic, idealistic) phenomenology.
He saw language and activity??? as two inter-related strands, which developed separately and interacted differently at different levels. Luria�s study on the relative abilities of illiterate peasants, schoolchildren and students in classifying and abstraction seemed to support this, showing that with education came a marked increase in facility (indeed, spontaneous-seeming naturalness) at the tasks.
Vygotsky helped rejuvenate discussion into consciousness as a phenomenon to be focused on. He sought to escape the mentalist circularity of explaining states of consciousness with the concept of consciousness. He felt this needed an explanatory principle removed from the level of consciousness. It seems to me that he understood (in an elementary manner) how emergent phenomena cannot be understood purely in terms of reductionist decomposition. He believed that the mechanisms of social behaviour and of consciousness are the same � in relation to ourselves we are in the same position as others to us.
He took an opposite perspective from Piaget, claiming that �inner speech� is a separate form of internalised communication which develops after we learn to use speech as a means of external communication to others. This parallels the way a baby learns indicative movements by attempting to grasp an object, noticing that its mother helps it by placing the object nearer, and its grasping attempts at the object become pointing gestures for others to notice.
He developed the theory of psychology as an aggregate of subjects, and semiotic mediation???
like the current trend of reinterpreting quantum theory in the light of Buddhism, Whorf�s post-rationalised enthusing about Hopi sounds/seems rather artificial
speaking
from physics� current perspective, which changes century by century
strong vs weak linguistic determinism
do I want to make up an Orwellian title?
do Eskimos really have 20 words for snow?
what is linguistic relativity? and what is the difference between it and linguistic determinism?