Language and Thought
Table of Contents
Lecture 1: Introduction...........................................................................................................................1
Lecture 2: Colour....................................................................................................................................4
Lecture 3: Sound.....................................................................................................................................8
Lecture 4: Space I...................................................................................................................................9
Lecture 5: Space II................................................................................................................................12
Lecture 6: Summary..............................................................................................................................15
Lecture 7: Gender.................................................................................................................................19
Lecture 9: Odour (Olfaction).................................................................................................................24
Lecture 1: Introduction
This course deals with questions like: Do you think in language? Can you think without language? Can
babies and animals think? Can they think the same thoughts as human adults?
What is the relationship between language and thought?
Does speaking different languages lead to differences in thinking? →Thinking across cultures
Language versus communication systems
Animals have communication systems, which are mostly referential. For example, if one monkey
signals for danger, the other monkeys know how to react. Some people argue that they make the
animals automatically, but some argue that is not the case.
Features that distinguish human language from other language
1. combinatorics
- combine a finite number of elements to make an infinite number of new expressions
2. displacement
- being able to communicate about things remote in space and time (talk about past and future, and
things that happen at other locations)
3. arbitrariness
- there is no necessary connection between a sound of a word and its meaning (helps to distinguish
between similar things)
- however: some parts of language are not arbitrary
Diversity of language
There are ca.6500 languages in the world today. The medium number of speakers of a language is
1,000. which shows that many are likely to go extinct because people are shifting to widely spoken
languages.
How do languages differ?
1. Sounds
,- number of phonemes (unit of sound in a language)
- sign languages (use manual modality)
2. Meaning
- e.g. how we divide colours, how many words there are for ´to eat´
3. Grammar
- e.g. describing who did what to who (In English we change word order), grammatical gender of
nouns
Where does this variation come from?
Languages vary because cultures vary
For example, the Jahai culture is called a smell culture because it is important for their everyday life.
Thus, they have many different verbs and words for smells. (lexical elaboration)
However, matters are more complicated. Not only Culture but also Biology and Environment play a
role.
Thought
There are different ways to look at thoughts (cognition):
Decision-making
Problem-solving
Reasoning
Memory
Perception
Perfors (2004): looked at whether the sound of a person´s name can trigger facial attractiveness
Method: picture of a person with different names
Result: differences for men and women, for men it was more attractive when the name included a
front vowel and obstruent consonant, for women it was more attractive when the name included a
back vowel and sonorant consonant
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
Speakers of different languages have different worldviews. There are different views on the extent:
Linguistic relativity: Language influences thought
Linguistic determinism: Language determines thought, if we don´t have the words to describe
something then we can´t think of it (therefore babies and animals can´t think)
Thinking for speaking: thoughts shaped by demands of linguistic code
Boroditsky (2011):
,Human intelligence has the ability to invent and rearrange conceptions of the world throughout time
(reflects history of the culture).
Sceptics:
1. Is language just reflecting the way we think?
2. Some say that the idea of language effecting thought is so obvious that it does not need to be
studied (language is made for that)
3. If language influences thought so much, why do we see so much consistency in human behaviour?
How does language effect the way we think?
1. Writing Systems
Does reading direction (left to right…) influence how we think about time?
Linguistic conventions, such as writing, are strong determinants of how people spatialise time
2. professions
E.g. wine experts have an own language to describe the smell of wine
Thought without Language
To assess how thought is like without language, studies look at prelinguistic infants. Another
possibility is to compare a speaking adult to a deaf adult that had no exposure to sign language.
Looking at Non-linguistic animals helps to research causalities. Another way is to use verbal
interference: manipulation in an experiment (e.g. telling someone to remember a long number while
doing a task).
What is the relationship between language and thought?
Does speaking different languages lead to differences in thinking?
- Cross-linguistic comparison
2. How does language usage effect thought?
- Literacy writing systems, sub-cultures
3. What is thought like without language
Language and Cognition (Asifa Majid): Language and Cognition
How to measure the effects of language and thought:
1. Does speaking one language versus another affect thinking?
2. How do different usage patterns of language affect cognition?
3. What is cognition like without language?
4. Cross-linguistic comparison
5. Literacy (whether people can read and write)
There are two approaches to research linguistic relativity:
1. structure centred
, Characterizes grammatical structures relevant for reference (e.g. gender, number) and then asks
whether there follow any cognitive consequences
2. domain centred
Begins with experience (e.g. colour, space, motion) and asks how language categorizes that domain
to investigate possible effects on cognition
Lecture 2: Colour
How do we perceive colour? (scientifically)
Colour is a continuous scale (wavelengths) and not
categorical like described in languages. Our eyes
have receptors that detect light. There are 3 types of
cones (short, medium, long) and each is sensitive to
different range of wavelength.
This would let us conclude that humans should have
a universal colour perception.
In psychology, colour space is used to represent in 3
dimensions the colour humans perceive:
- Lightness (value)
- Hues
- Saturation (chroma)
The Munsell Colour System is the most known colour space.
In English we have 11 colour terms. However, some languages use more or less. The colour green
and blue are often categorised as a single colour (e.g. in Japanese).
Colours maps or mode maps are used to show how a
language categorizes colours. It shows all colour
ships matched on saturation level and indicate the
focal colours (the ones with same background in the
map because they are categorized with the same
word.
Table of Contents
Lecture 1: Introduction...........................................................................................................................1
Lecture 2: Colour....................................................................................................................................4
Lecture 3: Sound.....................................................................................................................................8
Lecture 4: Space I...................................................................................................................................9
Lecture 5: Space II................................................................................................................................12
Lecture 6: Summary..............................................................................................................................15
Lecture 7: Gender.................................................................................................................................19
Lecture 9: Odour (Olfaction).................................................................................................................24
Lecture 1: Introduction
This course deals with questions like: Do you think in language? Can you think without language? Can
babies and animals think? Can they think the same thoughts as human adults?
What is the relationship between language and thought?
Does speaking different languages lead to differences in thinking? →Thinking across cultures
Language versus communication systems
Animals have communication systems, which are mostly referential. For example, if one monkey
signals for danger, the other monkeys know how to react. Some people argue that they make the
animals automatically, but some argue that is not the case.
Features that distinguish human language from other language
1. combinatorics
- combine a finite number of elements to make an infinite number of new expressions
2. displacement
- being able to communicate about things remote in space and time (talk about past and future, and
things that happen at other locations)
3. arbitrariness
- there is no necessary connection between a sound of a word and its meaning (helps to distinguish
between similar things)
- however: some parts of language are not arbitrary
Diversity of language
There are ca.6500 languages in the world today. The medium number of speakers of a language is
1,000. which shows that many are likely to go extinct because people are shifting to widely spoken
languages.
How do languages differ?
1. Sounds
,- number of phonemes (unit of sound in a language)
- sign languages (use manual modality)
2. Meaning
- e.g. how we divide colours, how many words there are for ´to eat´
3. Grammar
- e.g. describing who did what to who (In English we change word order), grammatical gender of
nouns
Where does this variation come from?
Languages vary because cultures vary
For example, the Jahai culture is called a smell culture because it is important for their everyday life.
Thus, they have many different verbs and words for smells. (lexical elaboration)
However, matters are more complicated. Not only Culture but also Biology and Environment play a
role.
Thought
There are different ways to look at thoughts (cognition):
Decision-making
Problem-solving
Reasoning
Memory
Perception
Perfors (2004): looked at whether the sound of a person´s name can trigger facial attractiveness
Method: picture of a person with different names
Result: differences for men and women, for men it was more attractive when the name included a
front vowel and obstruent consonant, for women it was more attractive when the name included a
back vowel and sonorant consonant
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
Speakers of different languages have different worldviews. There are different views on the extent:
Linguistic relativity: Language influences thought
Linguistic determinism: Language determines thought, if we don´t have the words to describe
something then we can´t think of it (therefore babies and animals can´t think)
Thinking for speaking: thoughts shaped by demands of linguistic code
Boroditsky (2011):
,Human intelligence has the ability to invent and rearrange conceptions of the world throughout time
(reflects history of the culture).
Sceptics:
1. Is language just reflecting the way we think?
2. Some say that the idea of language effecting thought is so obvious that it does not need to be
studied (language is made for that)
3. If language influences thought so much, why do we see so much consistency in human behaviour?
How does language effect the way we think?
1. Writing Systems
Does reading direction (left to right…) influence how we think about time?
Linguistic conventions, such as writing, are strong determinants of how people spatialise time
2. professions
E.g. wine experts have an own language to describe the smell of wine
Thought without Language
To assess how thought is like without language, studies look at prelinguistic infants. Another
possibility is to compare a speaking adult to a deaf adult that had no exposure to sign language.
Looking at Non-linguistic animals helps to research causalities. Another way is to use verbal
interference: manipulation in an experiment (e.g. telling someone to remember a long number while
doing a task).
What is the relationship between language and thought?
Does speaking different languages lead to differences in thinking?
- Cross-linguistic comparison
2. How does language usage effect thought?
- Literacy writing systems, sub-cultures
3. What is thought like without language
Language and Cognition (Asifa Majid): Language and Cognition
How to measure the effects of language and thought:
1. Does speaking one language versus another affect thinking?
2. How do different usage patterns of language affect cognition?
3. What is cognition like without language?
4. Cross-linguistic comparison
5. Literacy (whether people can read and write)
There are two approaches to research linguistic relativity:
1. structure centred
, Characterizes grammatical structures relevant for reference (e.g. gender, number) and then asks
whether there follow any cognitive consequences
2. domain centred
Begins with experience (e.g. colour, space, motion) and asks how language categorizes that domain
to investigate possible effects on cognition
Lecture 2: Colour
How do we perceive colour? (scientifically)
Colour is a continuous scale (wavelengths) and not
categorical like described in languages. Our eyes
have receptors that detect light. There are 3 types of
cones (short, medium, long) and each is sensitive to
different range of wavelength.
This would let us conclude that humans should have
a universal colour perception.
In psychology, colour space is used to represent in 3
dimensions the colour humans perceive:
- Lightness (value)
- Hues
- Saturation (chroma)
The Munsell Colour System is the most known colour space.
In English we have 11 colour terms. However, some languages use more or less. The colour green
and blue are often categorised as a single colour (e.g. in Japanese).
Colours maps or mode maps are used to show how a
language categorizes colours. It shows all colour
ships matched on saturation level and indicate the
focal colours (the ones with same background in the
map because they are categorized with the same
word.
