MODULE

2 Language and Thought

Imagine an alien species that could pass thoughts from one head to another merely by
pulsating air molecules in the space between them. Perhaps, these weird creatures could
inhabit a future science fiction movie? Actually, we are those creatures! When we speak,
our brain and voice apparatus transmit air pressure waves that we send banging against
another's eardrum —enabling us to transfer thoughts from our brain into theirs. As cog-
nitive psychologist Steven Pinker (1998) noted, we sometimes sit for hours "listening
to other people make noise as they exhale, because those hisses and squeaks contain
information." Depending on how you vibrate the air, you may get a scowl or a kiss.
Language is more than vibrating air — t i is our spoken, written, or signed words,

. Spencer Green/AP Pho

and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning. When I (DM] created this
paragraph, my fingers on the keyboard generated electronic binary numbers that mor-
phed into the squiggles before you. These squiggles trigger formless nerve impulses
that travel to several areas of your brain, which integrate the information, compare it
W

Language transmits knowledge to stored information, and decode meaning. Thanks to language, information is moving
Whether spoken, written, or signed, from our minds to yours. Many animals know little more than what they sense. Thanks
language - - the original wireless to language, we comprehend much that we've never seen and that our distant ancestors
communication - enables mind-to- never knew. And thanks to technology, we can use language to communicate across vast
mind information transfer and with ti the distances - through spoken, written, and even pictorial words (including the 2015 Oxford
transmission of civilization's accumulated English Dictionary "Word" of the Year, the emoji: a).
knowledge across generations. Let's begin our study of language by examining some of its components.

Language Structure
LOQ 28-1 What are the structural components of a language?
Consider how we might go about inventing a language. For a spoken language, we would
need three building, blocks:
• Phonemes are the smallest distinctive sound units in a language. The word that has
three phonemes-th, a, and t. Each e in Mercedes is a different phoneme because
each is pronounced differently. Linguists surveying nearly 500 languages have
identified 869 different phonemes in human speech, but no language uses all of
→ language our spoken, writen, or signed them (Holt, 2002; Maddieson, 1984). Those 800+ sounds "can form all the words in
words and the ways we combine them to
every language of the world," notes child language researcher Patricia Kuhl (2015).
communicate meaning. English uses about 40 phonemes; other languages use anywhere from half to more
p h o n e m e in a language, the smallest than twice as many. Consonant phonemes generally carry more information than do
distinctive sound unit. vowel phonemes. The treth ef thes stetement shed be evedent frem thes bref demenstretien.
morpheme in a language, the smallest unit • Morphemes are the smallest language units that carry meaning. In English, a few
that carries meaning; may be a word or a part
of a word (such as a prefix).
morphemes are also phonemes- the article ,a for instance. But most morphemes
c o m b i n e two or more phonemes. The word readers, for e x a m p l e , contains three
grammar in a language, a system of rules morphemes: read, er (that is, "one who reads"), and s (not one but multiple readers).
that enables us to communicate with and Every word in a language contains one or more morphemes.
understand others. Semantics is the language's
set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds, • Grammar is a language's set of rules that enable people to communicate. Grammatical
and syntax is its set of rules for combining rules guide us in deriving meaning from sounds (semantics) and in ordering words into
words into grammatically sensible sentences. sentences (syntax).
 MODULE 28 LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT 341

Like life constructed from the genetic code's simple alphabet, language is complex-
ity built of simplicity. In English, for example, 40 or so phonemes can be combined syntax the correct way to string words
together to form sentences for a given
to form more than 100,000 morphemes, which alone or in combination produce the language.
600,000 variations of past and present words in the Oxford English Dictionary. Using those
words, we can then create an infinite number of sentences, most of which (like this one)
are original. W e know that you can know why we worry that you think this sentence
is starting to get too complex; but that complexity-and our capacity to communicate
and comprehend i t - i s what distinguishes our human language capacity (Hauser et al.,
2002; Premack, 2007).

RETRIEVAL PRACTICE
RP-1 How many morphemes are ni the word cats? How many phonemes?
ANSWERS N
I APPENDIX E

Language Acquisition and Development

e humans have an astonishing knack for language. With little effort, we draw from
W
tens of thousands of words in our memory, assemble them on the fly with near-perfect
syntax, and spew them out, three words a second (Vigliocco &Hartsuiker, 2002). Given
how many ways we can mess up, our language capacity is truly amazing. "Language is a uniquely human gift, central
to our experience of being human."
Language Acquisition: How Do We Learn Language? - Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky (2009)

LoO 28-2 How do we acquire language, and what did Chomsky mean by universal
grammar?
Linguist Noam Chomsky has argued that language is an unlearned human trait, sepa-
rate from other parts of human cognition. He theorized that a built-in predisposition to
learn grammar rules, which he called universal grammar, helps explain why preschoolers
pick up language so readily and use grammar so well. It happens so naturally-as nat-
urally as birds learn to fly - that training hardly helps. Whether in Indiana or Indonesia,
we intuitively follow similar syntax rules (Aryawibawa &Ambridge, 2018). Al human
languages —and there are more than 6000 of them-have nouns, verbs, and adjectives
as grammatical building blocks, and they use words ni some common ways (Blasi et al.,
2016; Futrell et al., 2015). Creating a language Brought together
Other researchers note that children learn grammar as they discern patterns ni the as fi on a desert island (actually a school),
language they hear (Ibbotson &Tomasello, 2016). And Chomsky agrees that we are not Nicaragua's young deaf children over time
born with a built-in specific language or specific set of grammatical rules. The world's lan- drew upon sign gestures from home to
guages are structurally very diverse —more so than the universal grammar idea implies create their own Nicaraguan Sign Language,
(Bergen, 2014). Whatever language we experience as children, whether spoken or signed, complete with words and intricate grammar.
we will readily learn its specific grammar and vocabulary (Bavelier et al., 2003). And we Activated by a social context, nature and
always start speaking mostly in nouns (kitty, da-da) rather than in verbs and adjectives nurture work creatively together (Osborne,
1999; Sandler et al., 2005; Senghas &
(Bornstein et al., 2004). Biology and experience work together.
Coppola, 2001).
RETRIEVAL P R A C T I C E
RP-2 What was Noam Chomsky's view of language learning?
ANSWERS IN APPENDIX E

Language Development: When Do We Learn

Language?
LOQ 28-3 What are the milestones ni language development, and when si the
critical period for acquiring language?
Make a quick guess: How many words of your native language did you learn between
y o u r fi r s t birthday a n d your high school graduation? Although you use only 150 w o r d s
for about half of what you say, you probably learned about 60,000 words (Bloom, 2000;
 342 CHAPTER9 THINKING AND LANGUAGE (MODULES 27-28)

→ babbling stage the stage ni speech McMurray, 2007). That averages (after age 2) to nearly 3500 words each year, or about
development, beginning around 4 months, 10 each day! How you did—
t i how those 3500 words could so far outnumber the roughly
during which an infant spontaneously utters 200 words your schoolteachers consciously taught you each year—is one of the great
various sounds that are not all related to the human wonders.
household language. Could you even now state the rules of syntax (the correct way to string words together
one-word stage the stage in speech to form sentences) for the language(s) you speak fluently? Most of us cannot. Yet before
development, from about age 1to 2, during you could add 2 + 2, you were creating your own original sentences and applying these
which a child speaks mostly in single words. rules. As a preschooler, you comprehended and spoke with a facility that far outpaced
two-word stage the stage in speech even the brightest adult's ability to learn a new language.
development, beginning about age 2, during
which a child speaks mostly in two-word RECEPTIVE LANGUAGE Children's language development moves from simplicity to
s e m e n c e s .
complexity. Babies are born prepared to learn any language, with a slight bent toward
telegraphic speech the early speech stage the language they heard in the womb. By 4 months of age, babies can recognize differ-
ni which a child speaks like a telegram —"go ences in speech sounds (Stager & Werker, 1997). They can also read lips. We know this
car"— using mostly nouns and verbs. because ni experiments by Patricia Kuhl and Andrew Meltzoff (1982), babies have pre-
ferred looking at a face that matches a sound —an "ah" coming from wide open lips and
an "ee" from a mouth with corners pulled back. Recognizing such differences marks the
beginning of the development of babies' receptive language, their ability to understand
what si said to and about them. At 7months and beyond, they grow ni their power to do
what adults find difficult when listening to an unfamiliar language: to segment spoken
s o u n d s into individual words.
When adults listen to na unfamiliar language, the syllables all run together. Ayoung
Sudanese couple new to North America and unfamiliar with English might, for exam-
ple, hear United Nations as "Uneye Tednay Shuns." Their 7-month-old daughter would not
have this problem. Human infants display a remarkable ability to learn statistical aspects
of human speech (Batterink, 2017; Werker et al., 2012). Their brains not only discern
word breaks, they statistically analyze which syllables— as ni hap-py-ba-by —most often
go together. After just 2 minutes of exposure to a computer voice speaking an unbro-
ken, monotone string of nonsense syllables (bidakupadotigolabubidaku...), 8-month-olds
were able to recognize (as indicated by their attention) three-syllable sequences that
appeared repeatedly (Saffran, 2009; Saffran et al., 1996).

PRODUCTIVE LANGUAGE Long after the beginnings of receptive language, babies'

productive language -their ability to produce words —matures. Before nurture molds
babies' speech, nature enables a wide range of possible sounds in the babbling stage,
beginning around 4 months. In this stage, babies seem to sample all the sounds they
can make, such as ah-goo. Babbling does not imitate the adult speech babies hear — ti
includes sounds from various languages. From this early babbling, a listener could not
A natural talent Human infants come with identify an infant as being, say, French, Korean, or Ethiopian.
a remarkable capacity to soak up language. By about 10 months, infants' babbling has changed so that a trained ear can iden-
But the particular language they learn wil tify the household language (de Boysson-Bardies et al., 1989). Deaf infants who observe
reflect their unique interactions with others.
their deaf parents using sign language begin to babble more with their hands (Petitto &
Marentette, 1991). Without exposure to other languages, babies lose their ability to do
what we c a n n o t - t o discriminate and produce sounds and tones found outside their
native language (Kuhl et al., 2014; Meltzoff et al., 2009). Thus, by adulthood, those who
speak only English cannot discriminate certain sounds in Japanese speech. Nor can
Japanese adults with no training in English hear the difference between the English
r and .l For a Japanese-speaking adult, "la-la-ra-ra" may sound like the same syllable
repeated.
Around their first birthday, most children enter the one-word stage. They know that
sounds carry meanings, and they begin to use sounds —usually only one barely recog
nizable syllable, such as ma or da —to communicate meaning. But gradually the infant's
language conforms more to the family's language. Across the world, baby's first words
are often nouns that label objects or people (Tardif et al., 2008). At this one-word stage,
Care to guess babies' most common first "Doggy!" may mean "Look at the dog out there!"
words? In English, Croatian, French, Italian,
At about 18 months, children's word learning explodes from about a word per
and Kiswahili, they are mommy and daddy week to a word per day. By their second birthday, most have entered the two-word
(Frank et al., 2019).
stage (TABLE 28.1). They start uttering two-word sentences in telegraphic speech. Like
 MODULE 28 LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT 343

TABLE 28.1 Summary of Language Development

Month (approximate) Stage
Babbles many speech sounds ("ah-goo")
Babbling resembles household language ("ma-ma")
12 One-word speech ("Kitty!")
Two-word speech ("Get ball.")
24+ Rapid development into complete sentences

yesterday's telegrams that charged by the word ("TERMS ACCEPTED. SEND MONEY"),
a 2-year-old's speech contains mostly nouns and verbs ("Want juice"). Also like tele-
grams, their speech follows rules of syntax, arranging words in a sensible order. English-
speaking children typically place adjectives before nouns —white house rather than house
white. Spanish reverses this order, as in casa blanca.
Moving out of the two-word stage, children quickly begin uttering longer phrases
(Fromkin &Rodman, 1983). By early elementary school, they understand complex sen-
tences and begin to enjoy the humor conveyed by double meanings: "You never starve ni
the desert because of all the sand-which-is there."

RETRIEVAL PRACTICE
RP-3 What si the difference between receptive language and productive language, and when
do children typically hit these milestones in language development?
I APPENDIX E
ANSWERS N "Got idea. Talk better. Combine words.
Make sentences."
CRITICAL PERIODS Some children-such as those who receive a cochlear implant to
enable hearing, or those who are adopted by a family that uses another language —get a
late start on learning a language. For these late bloomers, language development follows
the same sequence, although usually at a faster pace (Ertmer et al., 2007; Snedeker et al.,
2007). But there is a limit on how long language learning can be delayed. Childhood
seems to represent a critical (or sensitive) period for learning certain aspects of language
before the language-learning window gradually closes (Hernandez &L,i 2007; Lenneberg,
1967). fI not exposed to either a spoken or a signed language by age 7, children lose their
ability ot fully comprehend and use any language.
Cultural and other environmental variations affect children's language exposure.
Children exposed to less complex language —such as U.S. 4-year-olds in classrooms
with 3-year-olds, or some children from impoverished homes —often display less lan-
guage skill (Ansari et al., 2015; Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015). Reading to children increases
language exposure. Jessica Logan and her colleagues (2019) found that frequent expo-
s u r e to children's books b o o s t s children's school readiness. "Kids w h o hear more vocab-
ulary words are going to be better prepared to see those words ni print when they enter
school."
Language-learning ability is universal, but it is easiest when we're children. If we
learn a new language as adults, we will usually speak it with the accent of our native
language and with imperfect grammar (Hartshorne et al., 2018). In one experiment,
U.S. immigrants from South Korea and China considered 276 English sentences
("Yesterday the hunter shoots a deer") and decided whether each was grammatically
correct or incorrect (Johnson & Newport, 1991). Al had been in the United States
for approximately 10 years; some had arrived in early childhood, others as adults.
As FIGURE 28.1 reveals, those who learned their second language early learned it
best.

RETRIEVAL PRACTICE
RP-4 Why is it so difficult to learn a new language in adulthood?
I APPENDIX E
ANSWERS N
 CHAPTER9 THINKING AND LANGUAGE ( M O D U L E S 2 7 - 2 8 )

→ FIGURE 28.1
Our ability to learn a new language Percentage correct
on grammar test
diminishes with age Ten years after 100%
coming to the United States, Asian
immigrants took an English grammar test.
Those who arrived before age 8 understood
American English grammar as well as native
speakers. Those who arrived later did not.
(Data from Johnson & Newport, 1991.) i n e o l d e r u n e

AE. Araiza/ Arizona Dall yStar/ AP Photc

age at immigration,
the poorer the
70 mastery ora
second language.

60

50
Native 3-7 8-10 11-15 17-39

Age at arrival, in years

Deafness and Language Development

The impact of early experiences is evident in language learning in deaf children of
hearing-nonsigning parents. These children typically do not experience language during
their early years. For example, natively deaf children who learn sign language after age
9 never learn it as well as those who learned ti early in life. Those who learn to sign as
teens or adults never become as fluent as native signers ni producing and comprehend-
Indy Ri cht er/ Cavan Images

ing subtle grammatical differences (Newport, 1990). As a flower's growth requires nour-
ishment, so, too, children's language acquisition requires early-life language exposure.
More than 90 percent of all deaf children are born to hearing parents. Most of these
parents want their children to experience their world of sound and talk. Cochlear
implants enable this by converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the
Hearing improved Aboy in Malawi auditory nerve by means of electrodes threaded into the child's cochlea. But fi an
experiences new hearing aids. implant is to help children become proficient in oral communication, parents cannot
delay the surgery until their child reaches the age of consent. Giving cochlear implants
to children is hotly debated. Deaf culture advocates object to giving implants to children
who were deaf prelingually. The National Association of the Deaf, for example, argues
that deafness is not a disability because native signers are not linguistically disabled.
More than five decades ago, Gallaudet University linguist William Stokoe (1960) showed
that sign si acomplete language with its own grammar, syntax, and meanings. Deaf
culture advocates sometimes further contend that deafness could as well be considered
"vision enhancement" as "hearing impairment." Close your eyes and immediately you,
too, will notice your attention being drawn to your other senses. In one experiment,
people who had spent 90 minutes sitting quietly blindfolded became more accurate in
their location of sounds (Lewald, 2007). When kissing, lovers minimize distraction and
increase sensitivity by closing their eyes.
People who lose one channel of sensation compensate with a slight enhancement of
their other sensory abilities (Backman &Dixon, 1992; Levy &Langer, 1992). Those who
have been deaf from birth exhibit enhanced visual processing (Almeida et al., 2015).
Their auditory cortex, starved for sensory input, remains largely intact but becomes
responsive to touch and to visual input (Karns et al., 2012). Once repurposed, the audi-
tory cortex becomes less available for hearing-which helps explain why cochlear
implants are most effective when given before age 2 (Geers &Nicholas, 2013; Niparko
et al., 2010).
LIVING IN A SILENT WORLD Worldwide, 466 million people live with hearing loss
(WHO, 2019). Some are profoundly deaf; most (more men than women) have hearing loss
(Agrawal et al., 2008). Some were deaf from birth; others have known the hearing world.
Some sign and identify with the language-based Deaf culture. Others, especially those
 MODULE 28 LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT 345

who lost their hearing after speaking a language, are "oral" and converse with the hear-
ing world by reading lips or written notes. Still others move between the two cultures.
The challenges of life without hearing may be greatest for children. Unable to com-
municate in customary ways, signing playmates may struggle to coordinate their play
with speaking playmates. School achievement may also suffer; academic subjects are
rooted in spoken languages. Adolescents may feel socially excluded, with a resulting low
self-confidence. Deaf children who grow up around other deaf people more often iden-
tify with Deaf culture and feel positive self-esteem. If raised ni a signing household,
whether by deaf or hearing parents, they also express higher self-esteem and feel more
accepted (Bat-Chava, 1993, 1994).
Adults who lose hearing late ni life also face challenges. Expending effort to hear
words drains their capacity to perceive, comprehend, and remember them (Wingfield
et al., 2005). In several studies, people with hearing loss, especially those not wearing
hearing aids, have reported more sadness, less social engagement, and worrying that Talking hands Human language
they irritate others (Kashubeck-West &Meyer, 2008; National Council on Aging, 2000). appears to have evolved from gestured
communications (Corballis, 2002, 2003;
They also may experience a sort of shyness: "It's almost universal among the deaf to Pollick &de Waal, 2007). Even today, gestures
want to cause hearing people as little fuss as possible," observed Henry Kisor (1990, are naturally associated with spontaneous
p. 244), a Chicago newspaper editor and columnist who lost his hearing at age .3"We speech, and similarly so for blind and sighted
can be self-effacing and diffident to the point of invisibility. Sometimes this tendency speakers of a given language (Ozcaliskan
can be crippling. I must fight it all the time." Helen Keller, both blind and deaf, noted that et al., 2016). Both gesture and speech
"blindness cuts people off from things. Deafness cuts people off from people." communicate, and when they convey the
I (DM) understand. My mother, with whom we communicated by writing notes on an same rather than different information
erasable "magic pad," spent her last dozen years ni an utterly silent world, largely with- (as they do in baseball's sign language),
drawn from the stress and strain of trying to interact with people outside a small circle we humans understand faster and more
of family and old friends. M
y own hearing is declining on a trajectory toward hers (with accurately (Dargue et a,l. 2019; Hostetter,
my hearing aid and cochlear implant receiver out at night, I cannot understand my wife 2011; Kelly et al,. 2010). Outfielder William
speaking from her adjacent pillow). Even with hearing aids, I sit front and center at plays Hoy, the first deaf player to join the major
and meetings and seek quiet corners in restaurants. I do benefit from cool technology leagues (1892), reportedly helped invent
(see HearingLoop.org) that, at the press of a button, can transform my hearing aid into hand signals for "Strike!""Safe!" (shown here)
an in-the-ear loudspeaker for the broadcast of phone, TV, and public address system and "Yerr out!" (Pollard, 1992). Referees ni al
sports now use invented signs, and fans are
sound. Yet I still experience frustration when I can't hear the joke everyone else is guf- fluent in sports sign language.
fawing over; when, after repeated tries, Ijust can't catch that exasperated person's ques-
tion and can't fake my way around it; when family members give up and say, "Oh, never
mind" after trying three times ot tell me something unimportant.
As she aged, my mother came to feel that seeking social interaction was simply not
worth the effort. I share newspaper columnist Kisor's belief that communication is
worth the effort (p. 246): "So,. I will grit my teeth and plunge ahead." To reach out, to
connect, to communicate with others, even across a chasm of silence, is to affirm our
humanity as social creatures.

The Brain and Language

LOO 28-4 What brain areas are involved ni language processing and speech?
We think of speaking and reading, or writing and reading, or singing and speaking as
merely different examples of the same general ability— language. But consider this curi-
ous finding: Damage ot any of several cortical areas can produce aphasia, impairment of
language. Even more curious, some people with aphasia can speak fluently but cannot aphasia impairment of language, usually
read (despite good vision). Others can comprehend what they read but cannot speak. caused by left hemisphere damage either
Still others can write but not read, read but not write, read numbers but not letters, to Broca's area (impairing speaking) or to
or sing but not speak. These cases suggest that language is complex and that different Wernicke's area (impairing understanding).
brain areas must serve different language functions. Broca's area a frontal lobe brain area,
Indeed, in 1865, French physician Paul Broca confirmed a fellow physician's obser- usually in the left hemisphere, that helps
vation that after damage to an area of the left frontal lobe (later called Broca's area control language expression by directing the
a person would struggle to speak words, yet could sing familiar songs and comprehend muscle movements involved in speech.
speech. Adecade later, German investigator Carl Wernicke discovered that after damage Wernicke's area a brain area, usually ni
to a specific area of the left temporal lobe (Wernicke's area), people could not understand the left temporal lobe, involved in language
others' sentences and could speak only meaningless sentences. comprehension and expression.
 346 CHAPTER 9 THINKING AND LANGUAGE (MODULES 27-28)

Brain scans have confirmed activity in Broca's and Wernicke's areas during
language processing (FIGURE 28.2). (For those with a larger-than-average Broca's
area, grammar learning is a breeze [Novén et al., 2019].) For people with apha-
sia, electrical stimulation of Broca's area can help restore their speaking abil-
ities (Marangolo et al., 2016). One man, whose stroke eliminated his ability to
speak, allowed researchers to implant an electrode array over his speech
motor cortex (Moses et al., 2021). By decoding the man's brain activity,
researchers could understand what he was trying to say about half of the
time-even though he could not utter a single word. "Not ot be able to com-
(a) (b) municate with anyone, to have a normal conversation and express yourself in
Speaking words Hearing words any way," the man noted, using a head-controlled mouse to type key-by-key,
l a r o c a s a r e a a n d
(Wernicke's area and
the motor cortex) "it's devastating, very hard to live with" (Belluck, 2021).
the auditory cortex)
• FIGURE 28.2 The brain's processing of language is complex. Broca's area coordinates
Brain activity when speaking and
with the brain's processing of language in other areas as well (Flinker et al.,
hearing words 2015; Tremblay &Dick, 2016). Although you experience language as a single, unified
stream, MRI scans would show that your brain is busily multitasking and networking.
Different neural networks are activated by nouns and verbs (or objects and actions); by
different vowels; by stories of visual versus motor experiences; by who spoke and what
was said; and by many other stimuli (Perrachione et al., 2011; Shapiro et al., 2006; Speer
et al., 2009). And these same networks become activated whether you're reading or lis-
tening to the words (Deniz et al., 2019).
Moreover, if you're lucky enough to be natively fluent in two languages, your brain
processes them in similar areas (Kim et al., 2017). But your brain doesn't use the same
areas if you learned a second language after the first or if you sign rather than speak
your second language (Berken et al., 2015; Kovelman et al,. 2014).
The point ot remember: In processing language, as ni other forms of information pro-
cessing, the brain operates by dividing its mental functions - speaking, perceiving,
thinking, and remembering— into subfunctions. Your conscious experience of learning
about the brain and language seems indivisible, but thanks to your parallel processing,
many different neural networks are pooling their work to give meaning to the words,
sentences, and paragraphs (Fedorenko et al., 2016; Snell & Grainger, 2019). E pluribus
unum: Out of many, one.

RETRIEVAL PRACTICE
RP-5 is one part of the brain that, fi
damaged, might impair your ability to speak words. Damage to
might impair your ability ot understand language.
ANSWERS N
I APPENDIX E

Thinking and Language

LOQ 28-5 What si the relationship between thinking and language, and what si the
value of thinking ni images?
Thinking and language —which comes first? This si one of psychology's great chicken-
and-egg questions. Do our ideas come first and then the words to name them? Or are
our thoughts conceived in words and unthinkable without them?
The theory of linguistic determinism was developed by linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf
(1956), who believed that those using languages with no past tense, such as the Hopi,
could not readily think about the past. But Whorf's theory was too extreme. We all think
about things for which we have no words. (Can you think of a shade of blue you cannot
name? Can you imagine wondering if someone might fall?)
Aless extreme idea, linguistic relativism, recognizes that our words influence our think-
→linguistic determinism Whorfs' hypothesis ing (Gentner, 2016). To those who speak two dissimilar languages, such as English and
that language determines the way we think. Japanese, this point seems obvious (Brown, 1986). Unlike English, which has a rich vocab-
linguistic relativism the idea that language ulary for self-focused emotions such as anger, Japanese has more words for interpersonal
influences the way we think. emotions such as sympathy (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Many bilingual individuals report
 MODULE 28 LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT 347

that they have different senses of sef—

l that they feel like different people - depending
on which language they are using (Matsumoto, 1994; Pavlenko, 2014).
Bilingual individuals may even reveal different personality profiles when taking the
same test in two languages, with their differing cultural associations (Chen &Bond,
2010; Dinges & Hull, 1992). When China-born, bilingual University of Waterloo students
described themselves in English, their responses fit typical Canadian profiles, express-
ing mostly positive self-statements and moods. When responding in Chinese, the same
students gave typically Chinese self-descriptions, reporting more agreement with
Chinese values and roughly equal positive and negative self-statements and moods
(Ross et al., 2002). Similar attitude and personality changes have been shown when
switching between Spanish and English or Arabic and English (Ogunnaike et al,. 2010;
Ramírez-Esparza et al., 2006). "Learn a new language and get a new soul," says a Czech
proverb.
So, our words do influence our thinking (Boroditsky, 2011). Words define our mental
categories. Whether we live in New Mexico, New South Wales, or New Guinea, we see the
same colors, but we use our native language to classify and remember them (Davidoff,
2004; Roberson et al., 2004, 2005). Imagine viewing three colors and calling two of them Culture and color nI Papua New Guinea
Berinmo children have words for different
"yellow" and one of them "blue." Later you would likely see and recall the yellows as
being more similar. But fi you speak the language of Papua New Guinea's Berinmo shades of yellow, which might enable them
people, which has words for two different shades of yellow, you would more speedily to spot and recal yellow variations meor
quickly. Here and everywhere, h"te languages
perceive and better recall the variations between the two yellows. And fi your native we speak profoundly shape the way we
language is Russian or Greek, which have distinct names for various shades of blue, you think, the way we see the world, het way
would perceive and recall the yellows as more similar and remember the blues better we live our lives," noted psychologist Lear
(Maier &Abdel Rahman, 2018). Words matter. Boroditsky (2009).
On the color spectrum, blue blends into green —until we draw a dividing line
between the portions we call "blue" and "green." Although equally different on the
color spectrum, two different items that share the same color name (as the two "blues"
do in FIGURE 28.3, contrast B ) are harder to distinguish than two items with different
names ("blue" and "green," as ni Figure 28.3, contrast A) (Özgen, 2004). Likewise, $4.99
perceptually differs more from $5.01 than from $4.97. And ot doctors, a patient who is 80
seems, relative to a 79-year-old, older than does a 79-year-old compared ot one who is 78
(Olenski et al., 2020).
Given their subtle influence on thinking, we do well to choose our words carefully.
When hearing the generic he (as in "the artist and his work"), people are more likely ot pic-
ture a man (Henley, 1989; Ng, 1990). fI he and his were truly gender free, we shouldn't skip
a beat when hearing that "man, like other mammals, nurses his young." Pronoun usage
can also influence how we feel about ourselves. Transgender and gender nonconforming
youth report feeling respected and included when their preferred pronouns are used —he/
she, him/her, they/their (Olson &Gülgöz, 2018; Rae et al,. 2019). And consider: Gender prej-
udice also occurs more in gendered languages, such as French, ni which, for example, al
table si feminine and el téléphone is masculine (DeFranza et al., 2020; Lewis &Lupyan, 2020).
To expand language is to expand the ability to think. Young children's thinking devel-
ops hand in hand with their language (Gopnik &Meltzoff, 1986). Indeed, it is very dif-
ficult to think about or conceptualize certain abstract ideas (commitment, freedom, or
rhyming) without language. And what is true for preschoolers is true for everyone: It pays
to increase your word power. That's why most textbooks, including this one, introduce new
words —to teach new ideas and new ways of thinking. "All words are pegs to hang ideas on."
Increased word power helps explain some benefits of bilingualism. McGill University - Henry Ward Beecher, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit,
researcher Wallace Lambert (1992; Lambert et al., 1993) reported that bilingual people are 1881

@ FIGURE 28.3
Language and perception When people
view blocks of equally different colors, they
perceive those with different names as
more different. Thus, the "green" and "blue" in
contrast Amay appear ot differ more htan
the two equally different blues incontrast B
(Ozgen, 2004).
348 CHAPTER9 THINKING AND LANGUAGE (MODULES 27-28)

skilled at inhibiting one language while using another — orf example, inhibiting "crayón
amarillo" while saying "yellow crayon" to English speakers, then doing the reverse for
Spanish speakers (Tsui et al., 2019). Bilingual children also exhibit enhanced social skill
by being better able to understand another's perspective (Fan et al., 2015; Gampe et al.,
2019). Bilingual preschool children have also displayed less racial bias (Singh et al., 2020).
Working with bilingual education advocates Olga Melikoff, Valerie Neale, and
Murielle Parkes, Lambert helped implement a Canadian program that has given millions
of English-speaking children a natural French fluency via French-immersion schooling
(Statistics Canada, 2019). Compared with similarly capable children in control groups,
these children exhibit no loss of English fluency. They also display increased creativity
and appreciation for French-Canadian culture (Genesee & Gándara, 1999; Lazaruk, 2007).
One lingering dispute concerns whether there exists, as some have claimed, a
"bilingual advantage" in cognitive tasks such as planning, focusing attention, and then,
when needed, switching attention (Antoniou, 2019; Bialystok, 2017). After reviewing all
the available research, critics argue that any bilingual advantage on overall cognitive
performance si unreliable and small (Gunnerud et al., 2020; Nichols et al., 2020). Stay
tuned: This research story is still being written.

ASK YOURSELF
Have you tried ot learn a new language after learning your first language? If so, how did learning
this other language differ from learning your first language? Does speaking ti feel different?
R E T R I E VA L P R A C T I C E
RP-6 Benjamin Lee Whorf's controversial hypothesis, called
-, suggested that we cannot think about things unless we have
words for those concepts or ideas.
ANSWERS IN APPENDIX E

Thinking in Images
To turn on the cold water in your bathroom, in which direction do you turn the handle? T
o
answer, you probably thought not in words but with implicit (nondeclarative, procedural)
memory— a mental picture of how you do it.
Indeed, we often think ni images; mental practice relies on it. Pianist
Liu Chi Kung harnessed this power. One year after placing second in
the 1958 Tchaikovsky piano competition, Liu was imprisoned during
China's cultural revolution. Soon after his release, after 7 years without
touching a piano, he was back on tour. Critics judged Liu's musicianship
as better than ever. How did he continue to develop without practice? I" did practice,"
said Liu, "every day. I rehearsed every piece I had ever played, note by note, in my mind"
(Garfield, 1986).
For someone who has learned a skill, such as ballet dancing, even watching the activ-
ity will activate the brain's internal simulation of it (Calvo-Merino et al., 2004). So, too,
will imagining a physical experience, which activates some of the same neural networks
that are active during the actual experience (Grèzes & Decety, 2001). Small wonder,
then, that mental practice has become a standard part of training for Olympic athletes
(Blumenstein & Orbach, 2012; Ungerleider, 2005).
One experiment on mental practice and basketball free-throw shooting tracked the
University of Tennessee women's team over 35 games (Savoy &Beitel, 1996). During that
time, the team's free-throw accuracy increased from approximately 52 percent in games
following standard physical practice, to some 65 percent after mental practice. Players
had repeatedly imagined making free throws under various conditions, including being
"trash-talked" by their opposition. In a dramatic conclusion, Tennessee won the national
championship game ni overtime, thanks in part to their free-throw shooting
Researchers demonstrated academic benefits of mental rehearsal with two groups
of introductory psychology students facing a midterm exam 1 week later (Taylor et al.,
Blend Images/Getty Image 1998). (Students not engaged in any mental rehearsal formed a third control group.)
 MODULE 28 LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT 349

The first group spent 5 minutes daily visualizing themselves scanning the posted grade
list, seeing their A, beaming with joy, and feeling proud. This daily outcome simulation
added only 2 points to their exam-score average. The second group spent 5 minutes
daily visualizing themselves reading their text, going over notes, eliminating distrac-
tions, declining an invitation out. This daily process simulation paid off: The group began
studying sooner, spent more time at it, and beat the others' average score by 8 points.
The point ot remember: It's better to imagine how to reach your goal than merely to fanta-
size your desired destination.

Psychological research on thinking and language mirrors the mixed impressions of our
species by those ni fields such as literature and religion. Our misjudgments are com-
monplace and our intellectual failures striking. Yet our problem-solving ingenuity and
our extraordinary power of language mark humankind as (in Shakespeare's words)
a l m o s t "infinite in faculties."

ASK YOURSELF
How could you use mental practice ot improve your performance ni some area of your life —for
example, ni your schoolwork, personal relationships, or hobbies?
RETRIEVAL PRACTICE
RP-7 What si mental practice, and how can it help you to prepare for an upcoming event?
ANSWERS IN APPENDIX'E

Do Other Species Have Language?

LOQ 28-6 What do we know about other species' capacity for language?
Humans, more than other animals, can take others' perspectives and regulate them-
selves with a moral sense (Li &Tomasello, 2021). Humans also have long proclaimed
that language sets us above other animals. "When we study human language," asserted
linguist Noam Chomsky (1972), "we are approaching what some might call the 'human
essence,' the qualities of mind that are, so far as we know, unique [to humans]." Is it true
that humans, alone, have language?
Some animals display basic language processing. Pigeons can learn the difference
between words and nonwords, but they could never read this book (Scarf et al., 2016).
Various monkey species sound different alarm cries for different predators. Hearing the
leopard alarm, vervets climb the nearest tree. Hearing the eagle alarm, they rush into
the bushes. Hearing the snake alarm, they stand up and scan the ground (Byrne, 1991;
Clarke et al., 2015; Coye et al., 2015). To indicate multiple threats (some combination of
eagle, leopard, falling tree, and neighboring group), monkeys will combine 6 different
calls into a 25-call sequence (Balter, 2010). But are such communications language?
In the late 1960s, psychologists Allen Gardner and Beatrix Gardner (1969) aroused
enormous scientific and public interest with their work with Washoe, a young chim-
panzee. Building on chimpanzees' natural tendencies for gestured communication, they
taught Washoe sign language. After 4 years, Washoe could use 132 signs; by her life's end
in 2007, she was using 250 signs (Metzler, 2011; Sanz et al., 1998).
During the 1970s, some chimpanzees reportedly began stringing signs together
to form sentences. Washoe, for example, signed "You me go out, please." Some word
combinations seemed creative —saying water bird for "swan" or apple-which-is-orange for
"orange" (Patterson, 1978; Rumbaugh, 1977).
But by the late 1970s, other psychologists were growing skeptical. Were the chimps
language champs or were the researchers chumps? Consider, said the skeptics:
• Ape vocabularies and sentences are simple— rather like those of a 2-year-old child. And
unlike children, apes gain their limited vocabularies only with great difficulty (Wynne,
2004, 2008). Apes' signing might also be nothing more than aping their trainers' signs
and learning that certain arm movements produce rewards (Terrace, 1979).
 350 CHAPTER9 THINKING AND LANGUAGE ( M O D U L E S 2 7 - 2 8 )

• When information is unclear, we are prone to perceptual —

est a tendency to see what
we want or expect to see. Interpreting chimpanzee signs as language may have
been little more than the trainers' wishful thinking (Terrace, 1979). When Washoe
seemingly signed water bird, she may actually have been separately naming water
and bird.
• "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange.." is a far cry from the exquisite
syntax of a 3-year-old (Anderson, 2004; Pinker, 1995). Rules of syntax in human
language govern the order of words in sentences. So to a child, "You tickle" and
"Tickle you" communicate different ideas. Not so to a chimpanzee.
Controversy can stimulate progress, and in this case, it triggered more evidence
of other species' abilities to think and communicate. One surprising finding was that
Washoe trained her adopted son Loulis to use the signs she had learned. Without human
assistance, Loulis eventually picked up 68 signs, simply by observing Washoe and three
other language-trained chimps signing together. Even more stunning was a later report:
Kanzi, a bonobo with a reported 384-word vocabulary, could understand syntax in spo-
ken English (Savage-Rumbaugh et al., 1993, 2009). Kanzi, who appears to have the recep-
Comprehending canine Border collie tive language ability of a human 2-year-old, has responded appropriately when asked,
Rico had a vocabulary of 200 human words.
"Can you show me the light?" and "Can you bring me the [flash)light?" and "Can you
fI asked to retrieve a toy with a name he turn the light on?" Given stuffed animals and asked —for the first time —to "make the
had never heard, Rico would pick out a
new toy from a group of familiar items
dog bite the snake," he put the snake ot the dog's mouth.
(Kaminski et al., 2004). Hearing that name So, are humans the only language-using species? If by language we mean an ability to
for the second time 4 weeks later, Rico more communicate through a meaningful sequence of symbols, then apes are indeed capable
often than not would retrieve the same toy. of language. But fi we mean a verbal or signed expression of complex grammar that
Another border collie, Chaser, set an animal enables us to exchange thoughts, most psychologists would now agree that humans
record by learning 1000 object names (Pilley, alone possess language (Suddendorf, 2018).
2013). Like a 3-year-old child, she could also One thing si certain: Studies of animal language and thinking have moved psycholo-
categorize them by function and shape and gists toward a greater appreciation of other species' remarkable abilities (de Waal, 2019;
could "fetch a bal" or "fetch adol." Wilson et al., 2015). nI the past, many psychologists doubted that other species could
pwhat
aln, others
for coknow-Does
ncent, owe;myefriend0,knowhe compaosin ni nhic 97)oTa onanst
a snake si nearby? (Crockford et al., 2017). Non-
human animals exhibit insight, show family loyalty, care for one another, and transmit
cultural patterns across generations. Working out what this means for the moral rights
of other animals is an unfinished task.

A S K YOURSELF
Can you think of a time when you believed an animal was communicating with you? How might
you put that to a test?

RETRIEVAL PRACTICE
RP-8 fI your dog barks at a stranger at the door, does this qualify as language? What fi the
dog yips in a telltale way to let you know she needs to go out?
ANSWERS IN APPENDIXE
 MODULE 28 LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT 351

2 8 REVIEW Language and Thought

LEARNING OBJECTIVES MODULE TEST
Test Yourself Answer these repeated Learning Objective Questions on Test Yourself Answer the following questions on your own first, then
your own (before "showing" the answers here, ro checking the answers ni "show" hte answers here, or check your answers ni Appendix E
Appendix D
) ot improve your retention of the concepts (McDaniel et al.,
2009, 2015). 1. Children reach the one-word stage of speech development at
about
a. 4months.
LOQ 28-1 What are the structural components of alanguage? b. 6months.
LOQ 28-2 How do we acquire language, and what ddi Chomsky .c 1year.
mean yb universal grammar? d. 2years.
LOQ 28-3 What are the milestones ni language development, 2. The three basic building blocks of language are
-,and
and when si hte critical period ofr acquiring language?
LOO 28-4 What brain areas are involved ni language processing
and speech? .3W
sheuoy nochires setni shotseaphr unsig ym
ltos
LOQ 28-5 What si the relationship between thinking and
language, and what si hte value of thinking ni images? 4. According to Chomsky, humans have a built-in predisposition ot
e called this trait
learn grammar rules. H
LOQ 28-6 What do we know about other species capacity for
language? 5. Most researchers agree that apes can
.a communicate through symbols.
TERMS AND CONCEPTS T O REMEMBER b. gain vocabulary whti little difficulty.
Test Yourself Write down hte definition ni your own words, then check .c comprehend language ni adulthood.
your answer.
d. surpass a human 3-year-old ni language skills.
language, p. 340 two-word stage, p. 342
phoneme, p. 340 telegraphic speech, p. 342
morpheme, p. 340 aphasia, p. 345
grammar, p. 340 Broca's area, p. 345
syntax, p. 341 Wernicke's area, p. 345
babbling stage, p. 342 linguistic determinism, p. 346
one-word stage, p. 342 linguistic relativism, p. 346