Psych240 Language Part 2

Linguistic Determinism

"The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group. 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 worlds with different labels attached." -Sapir, 1929. "We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds--and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds." - Whorf, 1956.

Parsing language sounds

- Need to learn the phonemes of your language -Each phoneme is a perceptual category -Then need to segment the continuous stream of speech into the right phonemes -Chop it up into basic units of language: Phonemes/syllables -Must also combine phonemes into words

Examples of Language Development/Acquisition

-"Mama!" (8 months) -"Wash hair." (1 year, 4 months) -"Don't tickle my tummy, Mommy!" (1 year, 11 months) -"My grandma gave me this dolly, Cara. My grandma is my mommy's mommy. I have another grandma too. She's my daddy's mommy. And Aunt Elli is my daddy's sister." (2 years, 9 months)

Hoffman, Lau & Johnson (1986)

-Bilinguals fluent in Chinese & English -Read story about a "worldly, experienced, socially skilled person who is devoted to his family, and somewhat reserved" written in either English or Chinese -Chinese language one word to describe such a person: shi gE -English speakers do not -After, participants rated a variety of statements about the characters -Some asked about shi gE stereotype -If passage was read in Chinese, a greater impact of the stereotype was present

How dos language development proceed?

-Discriminating phonemes, motherese -Holophrastic (one word) stage, telegraphic (two words) stage, learning syntax -Learning word meanings -Critical period effects

What must be learned?

-Distinguishing sounds, parsing into phonemes and words, meanings, rules -without grammatical feedback, using universals

Winawer et al. 2007

-English speaker: "They're all blue" -Russian speaker: "2 on the left are goloboy, rest are siniy" -Test: which one matches the top square? - Between category: one goloboy, one siniy -Within category: both siniy

Effects of Labels on Memory

-Labels have been shown to lead to memory distortion

Kay & Kempton (1984)

-Used triads of colors -two items were clear examples of blue (A) or green (B) and a third lay between them (C) -subjects had to decide which two went together - make similarity judgement -asked English and Tarahumara (Mexican-Indian language) speaking participants to determine if C was closer to A or B -In Tarahumara, there is no color distinction/no labels "blue" or "green" -Tarahumara made their judgements based on physical similarity (wavelength) with no categorical perception -English speakers showed categorical perception, made the color C into either blue or green -Supports idea of linguistic relativity

Language Development

-What must be learned? -How does it happen?

Codability

-how easily a concept can be described in a given language -if you have a word for concept X, its a lot easier to encode that concept

Linguistic relativity

-milder interpretation -thoughts and behavior are influenced by language (not determined)

Assigning Meanings

-once you have words, you need to assign meanings -Problems: what in the environment corresponds to the word — "Gavagai" problem -even worse for abstract words

Linguistic Determinism/Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

-strong interpretation -thoughts and behavior are determined by language "The structure of anyone's native language strongly influences or fully determines the worldview he will acquire as he learns the language

Berlin and Kay (1969)

-tested strong form of linguistic relativity/determinism -found that there are eleven specific colors all languages derive their color terms from that follow a hierarchy -two color terms: black and white -three terms: black, white, red -additional color words in the order: yellow-blue-green, then brown, then purple, pink , orange, grey -indicated that there may be universal, physiologically based principle behind color naming

Heider (1972)

-tribe in New Guinea called the Dani only had two color terms (black and white) -showed them color chips then later asked them to recognize that chip vs. a new one -focal colors (a shade that people judge as typical red) vs. nonfocal colors -Dani behaved the same as English speakers — could remember the right color chips even though they had no words for them and they recognized focal colors better than nonfocal