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Language and Thought 2

The document discusses language and its relationship to thought. It covers topics like the features of language, how language is acquired, the influence of language on thinking, gender differences in language use, bilingual education, thinking without language, and animal communication.

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Grace Jeffrey
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35 views20 pages

Language and Thought 2

The document discusses language and its relationship to thought. It covers topics like the features of language, how language is acquired, the influence of language on thinking, gender differences in language use, bilingual education, thinking without language, and animal communication.

Uploaded by

Grace Jeffrey
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Language and

Thought
Language Happy
holidays

 The most tangible


indication of our thinking appreciation
power
 Unique to humans
 Enables us to hello
communicate complex
ideas
 Enables us to retain and
transmit the collective Hebrew

knowledge of civilization
You are Amazing

 You probably know about 80,000 words.


 From 1 year old to the time you
graduated from high school, you learned
about 5000 words each year.
Features of Language by
Steven Pinker

1. Semanticity – sounds in human


language convey meaning (unlike
coughing or clearing our throats)
2. Arbitrariness – no inherent connection
between symbols in a language and
their meaning. The word “dog” has no
connection to an animal.
3. Flexibility of symbols – language
changes and grows. Cars used to be
called automobiles.
Features of Language by
Steven Pinker

1. Naming – we assign names to objects and


feelings. “I am word processing on my
personal computer.”
2. Displacement – language allows us to talk
about the past or the future as well as the
present.
3. Productivity (also called generativity) – we
generate sentences rather than repeat them.
This is how Chomsky critiqued Skinner’s
work.
Acquisition of Language

Babbling stage
Babies practice pronouncing sounds.
By around 10 months, it sounds like the native
language.
Acquisition of Language

One Word Stage


At about 1 year, the child uses one syllable words
to express something – “ma” “da” “ga”
Acquisition of Language
Two Word Stage
Around their second
birthday, children begin
to form two word
sentences
Telegraphic Speech –
mainly nouns and verbs
in a sensible order –
“nice doggy” “big boy”
“pretty baby” “need juice”
“no nap”
Explanation of Language
Development
 Skinner – association, imitation, reinforcement
 Chomsky – inborn universal grammar, brains
prewired, hardware and operating system
 Cognitive Scientists – we are able to quickly
statistically analyze aspects of human speech

The younger we learn a new language the better.


Thinking and Language

 Language Influences thinking – Lee


Whorf
 linguistic relativity hypothesis- different
languages impose different conceptions
of reality on us and shape our sense of
self.
Thinking and Language –
Gender Differences
Gender and Language – true or false???
1. Men talk more than women.
2. Men are more likely to interrupt women than to
interrupt other men.
3. There are approximately ten times as many sexual
terms for males as for females in the English
language.
4. During conversations, women spend more time
gazing at their partner than men do.
5. Nonverbal messages carry more weight than verbal
messages.
Thinking and Language –
Gender Differences
6. Female managers communicate with more emotional
openness and drama than male managers
7. Men not only control the content of conversations,
they also work harder in keeping conversations going.
8. When people hear generic words such as “mankind”
and “he,” they respond inclusively, indicating that the
terms apply to both sexes.
9. Women are more likely to touch others than men are.
10. In a classroom, male students receive more
reprimands and criticism than female students.
11. Women are more likely than men to disclose intimate,
personal, information.
Thinking and Language –
Gender Differences
12. Female speakers are more animated in their
style than males.
13. Women use less personal space than men.
14. When a male speaks, he is listened to more
carefully than a female speaker, even when
she makes the identical presentation.
15. In general, women speak in a more tentative
style than men do.
16. Women are more likely to answer questions
not addressed to them than men.
Thinking and Language –
Gender Differences
Answers:
1. ? 2. T 3. F 4. T
5. T 6. F 7. F 8. F
9. F 10. T 11. T 12. T
13. T 14. T 15. T 16. F
Bilingual Education
 Is it beneficial?
 What does it do for
the brain?
 Should it be
mandatory for
children?
Thinking Without
Language
 Mental rehearsal
can boost your
performance in
athletics,
academics, and
social situations.
Student Project
 Draw two cognitive maps.
1. Draw a map from your house to the library, Starbucks,
or a place you often go. Draw it from memory only.
2. Draw a map from your house to Unitar. Put in as much
detail as you can recall.
3. How accurate were your maps? How much detail did
you include? Did you expect to be more accurate than
you were?
Animal Thinking and
Language
 Do animals think?
 They can solve
problems, count,
improvise the use of
implements to get to
food, recognize
themselves in a
mirror.
 Can apes talk?
So, can apes really talk?
 Language comes to
them with difficulty
 Can they transmit it
to each other?
 What about
“perceptual set?” -
 What about their
cognitive powers?
Qs to P

 How does your language ability, an


advantage for you?
 How does your language ability, a
disadvantage for you?
 If animals have no language, then what do
they use to communicate? Remember,
language literally does not mean words.

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