PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

Language, culture, and cognition

Lanuage and thought

How are language and thought related?

Are inner speech and thought the same thing?

How does language impact thought?

Are there things that we cant think about because our

language imposes particular constraints?
Does our language affect how we perceive the world?
Can two people who speak different languages
communicate?

The question has been debated for a long time

And still is today

New York Times article

Some history

Plato & Socrates THINKING = INNER SPEECH

Socrates: And do you accept my description of the process of thinking?

Theaetetus: How do you describe it?
Socrates: As a discourse that the mind carries on with itself about any
subject it is considering. I have a notion that, when the mind is
thinking, it is simply talking to itself, asking questions and answering
them. So I should describe thinking as a discourse, not aloud to
someone else, but silently to oneself.

Some history
Aristotle: SPEECH IS THE SYMBOL OF THOUGHT
Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words are
the symbols of spoken words. Just as all men have not the same
writing, so all men have not the same speech sounds; but the mental
experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for all, as
also are those things of which our experiences are the images.

Some history
John B. Watson (1913, early behaviorist):
thought processes are really motor habits in the larynx, improvements,
short cuts, changes, etc., in these habits are brought about in the same
way that such changes are produced in other motor habits. This view
carries with it the implication that there are no reflective processes
(centrally initiated processes).
But see Smith, Brown, Thomas, and Goodman (1947) used curare to
temporarily paralyze all voluntary muscles, but participant (first author
Smith) reportedly could still think and solve problems

Some history
Vygotsky (Russian developmental psychologist)

Language and thought have different origins

Pre-linguistic child thinks independently of language

Words are not symbols for thought, instead are properties of

objects

Speech sounds are not thought

Language is acquired from the childs social grouping
Later speech and thought become connected

Speech becomes representational

Childrens monologues are internalized and become inner

speech

Some history

Franz Boas, father of American Anthropology

Edward Sapir, student of Boas

grammatical meaning [can] only be understood in terms of

the system of which it is part
the real world is to a large extent unconsciously build up
on the language habits of the group.

Benjamin Lee Whorf, student of Sapir (and insurance

claims adjustor)

Benjamin Lee Whorf

We cut up and organize the spread and flow of events as we do largely because,
through our mother tongue, we are parties to an agreement to do so, not because
nature itself is segmented in exactly that way for all to see.
Every language is a vast pattern system, different from others, in which are
culturally ordained the forms and categories by which the personality not only
communicates, but also analyzes nature, notices or neglects types of
relationships and phenomena, channels his reasoning, and builds the house
of his consciousness.
From this fact proceeds what I have called the linguistic relativity principle,
which means, in informal terms, that users of markedly different grammars are
pointed by their grammars toward different types of observations and hence
are not equivalent as observers

Does language affect thought?

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Linguistic determinism

Language determines thought (memory, perception, & action)

Linguistic relativity

Different languages map onto the world differently, resulting in

different cognitive structures

Whorf posited that cultural thinking differences were the direct

result of differences in their languages
Speakers of different languages see the world in different,
incompatible ways, because their languages impose different
conceptual structures on their experiences.

Weak version(s) of the hypothesis:

Language influences thinking & how we perceive the world

7 min video

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

What evidence led Whorf to this conclusion?

The bulk of his evidence was drawn from cross-cultural

comparisons

He studied several Native American cultures.

But he also used examples drawn from his days as an

insurance investigator

Does language affect thought?

Whorfs famous example

Empty gasoline drums

Yet the empty drums are perhaps more dangerous (in

comparison to the full drums), since they contain explosive
vapor. The word empty is used in two linguistic patterns:

(1) as a virtual synonym for null and void, negative, inert,

(2) applied in analysis of physical situations without regard to, e.g.,
vapor, liquid vestiges, in the container.

The situation is named in one pattern (2) and the name is then
acted out in another (1), this being the general formula for the
linguistic conditioning of behavior into hazardous forms. (Whorf,
1956, p. 135)

Does language affect thought?

Whorfs famous example

Empty gasoline drums

Linguistic form

empty

Linguistic meanings

Container no longer
contains intended
contents

null and void,

negative, inert

Mental interpretations

drum no longer
contains gasoline

drum is no longer
dangerous; okay to
smoke cigarettes

Nonlinguistic observables

gasoline drum
without gasoline

worker smokes
cigarettes

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Some of the evidence:

Whorf claimed Inuit have several terms for snow

Qanuk snowflake
Qanir to snow
Qanunge to snow
Qanugglir to snow
Kaneq frost

Kaner be frosty
Kanevvluk fine snow
Natquik drifting snow
Natquigte for snow to drift
along the ground
And more

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Some of the evidence:

Whorf claimed Inuit have several terms for snow

However, there are many different Inuit languages and not

all posses the same number of terms.
Boas (1911) reported one group with four root terms.

This number is probably matched or surpassed by skiers

regardless of their language.
See Pullums Great Eskimo Hoax (1991)

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Specialization based on experience

Different groups within a culture vary in terms of the

number of words they use for things

Consider memory

Most people are aware of two kinds of memory, short term

and long term.
As we discovered previously cognitive psychologists have
many terms: Sensory registers, Iconic and echoic, short-term
or working or primary memory, long-term, verbal and
imagistic, declarative, procedural, and episodic.
It would be fair to say that the layman and the cognitive
psychologist think differently about memory.

Testing the theory

Two major approaches have been employed to test the
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

Test the strong view language determines thought by seeing

if the cognitive system can make distinctions that are not
linguistically represented
Test a weaker view that language influences thought.

Two of the domains in which this issue has been studied

Color terms
Counting and arithmetic
Others include: time/space language & grammatical categories

Cultural Variations

If your language didnt have separate names for these,

would you see them the same way?

Color Terms

Much of the initial research focused on an aspect of

language which varies widely across cultures
Color Terms

There are a few languages which have only two color

terms, and some with three.
Most languages draw their color names from 11 specific
colors.

Color Terms

Berlin and Kay (1969): Color hierarchy

Rules: Consist of only one morpheme, not contained within

another color word, not restricted to a small number of
objects, and commonly known

In 2 color term languages the terms correspond to Black & White

In 3 color term languages they correspond to Black, White & Red
Languages with additional terms items are added as follows: yellow,
green, blue then brown, then purple, pink, orange, and gray.

This data runs contrary to Whorfs hypotheses

They suggest a universal physiological basis for color

naming, independent of language

Color Terms

Brown & Lenneberg (1954): So do naming practices

influence our ability to distinguish or remember
colors?

If something in a culture is named frequently it may be labeled

with a brief name, less frequently with a longer name, and
infrequently with a phrase rather than a single word
The process of naming in this manner is known as codability.

Codability = how easily a concept can be described in a

language, related to the length of the word.

Asked people to name 24 colors (8 central, 16 others). Those

with longer names were named with hesitations and less
consistency

Color Terms

Hieder (1972) (Rosch, 1973 [same person])

Dani tribe of New Guinea use only two color names

Mili cool/dark shades (e.g., blue, green, black)

Mola warm/light shades (e.g., red, yellow, white)

They had no difficulty in recognizing color chips that were from

an initial presentation from among distracters even though they
had no names for the colors.
Additionally, they were better at recognizing focal colors (e.g.,
the best example of blue) than non-focal colors (just as we
English speakers are)

This data does not support the strong view of Whorfs

hypothesis.

Check out: ISUs Mind Project Virtual Anthropology Lab

Color Terms

Comparative judgments among colors are affected

by color naming practices

Kay & Kempton, (1984)

Investigated English and Tarahumara

In Tarahumara there are no separate terms for blue and green
The task was see 3 chips pick the one least similar in color

Some trials had chips English speakers would call C1 green, C2

blue and C3 was a focal example of green but farther away in
light spectrum from C1 than was the case for C1 vs. C2

Color Terms

Comparative judgments among colors are affected

by color naming practices

Kay & Kempton, (1984)

Investigated English and Tarahumara

In Tarahumara there are no separate terms for blue and green
The task was see 3 chips pick the one least similar in color
Predictions:

Results:

Visual stimuli as only basis pick C3 as odd

Naming practices influence pick C2 as odd
Tarahumara speakers pick C3
English speakers tended to pick the chip they would label blue (C2)
even though in the spectrum it was closer to C1 than was C3

Support for a weak version of the Whorfian hypothesis

Color Terms

Winawer, Boroditsky and others (2007)

English and Russian divide up blues differently

Results

Russian makes an obligatory distinction between lighter blues (goluboy)

and darker blues (siniy).
Russian speakers were faster to discriminate two colors when they fell
into different linguistic categories (one siniy and the other goluboy) than
when they were from the same linguistic category (both siniy or both
goluboy).
English speakers tested on the identical stimuli did not show a category
advantage in any of the conditions.

Support for a weak version of the Whorfian hypothesis, categories in

language affect performance on simple perceptual color tasks

Color Terms

Siok, Kay and others (2009)

fMRI study
Results:

Lexical color information was accessed in color

discrimination
It also enhanced the activation of color region V2/3

Discussion:

Language, by enhancing the activation level of the

visual cortex, differentially influences the
discrimination of colors presented in the left and
right visual hemi-fields.
Support for a weak version of the Whorfian
hypothesis, categories in language affect brain
activation during perceptual color tasks

Higher Cognitive Processes

Color naming may not seem like a very complex

cognitive process:

What about more complex mental processes?

Counting and other Arithmetic processes

Counting & Arithmetic

Greenberg (1978) has identified some cultures where

the only number terms correspond to one, two, many.

Piraha tribe; Gordon (2004) (in conjunction with ISUs Dan Everett)

Hoi (falling tone = one), hoi (rising tone = two), aibai (= many)

Matching tasks - show an array of objects, they have to put

objects down to match the array

Results - relatively good matching up to 2 or 3, but performance

was considerably poorer beyond that up to 8 to 10 items

Different languages terms for numbers also has effects on arithmetic

Counting & Arithmetic

Miller & Stigler (1987)

English and French have complex names for numbers

Japanese,Chinese and Korean have simpler systems

From Miller & Stigler

(1987)

Counting & Arithmetic

Miller & Stigler (1987)

The greater regularity of number names in Chinese,

Japanese and Korean as compared to English or French
facilitates the learning of counting behavior beyond 10 in
those languages.
Another advantage is earlier mastery of place value
(understanding that in # 23 there are 2 tens and 3 ones)

Counting & Arithmetic

Miller & Stigler (1987)

Conclusions

At this point it is apparent that the strong view of

Whorfs hypothesis is not supported.

Steven Pinker (The Language Instinct, 1994)

The famous Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic determinism is
wrong, all wrong. There is no scientific evidence that languages
dramatically shape their speakers ways of thinking.
Most of the experiments have tested banal weak versions of the
Whorfian hypothesis, namely that words can have some effect on
memory or categorization. Some of these experiments have actually
worked, but that is hardly surprising.

Conclusions

At this point it is apparent that the strong view of

Whorfs hypothesis is not supported.
However, there is continued support for the weaker
version(s) of the hypothesis

The data from areas of investigation concerning color naming,

counting & arithmetic, reasoning, visual memory, and other areas
(e.g., social inference) indicate that the use of certain specific terms
can influence how we think

The question that remains is how much of the differences are

because of the language and how much due to the culture?
Problems

Language cannot be randomly assigned

Therefore we cannot rule out some third variables

such as culture.