PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

Language, Culture, and Cognition

Lanuage and thought Can two people who speak different languages

communicate? Two approaches

Translation is possible linguistic realism

Translation is essentially impossible linguistic determinism linguistic relativism

Sometimes called “Whorfian hypothesis” or “Sapir-Whorf hypothesis”

Benjamin Lee Whorf

“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.” —Whorf (1956: 252)

Language, behavior, and our perception of the world

Behavior What aspects of an image does my language lead me to attend to? How will the categories of my language affect the way in which I

sort objects? How will the categories of my language affect the distinctions I can

perceive, e.g., on the color spectrum? The world

We often talk about a linguistic system ‘carving up reality’. This implies that languages differ only with respect to the ways in which

they describe physical reality. But language is also used to express concepts that humans create—

concepts that might only exist within a single speech community.

Some history Franz Boas, father of American Anthropology

“grammatical meaning [can] only be understood in terms of the system of which it is part”

Edward Sapir, student of Boas “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)

Whorfian hypothesis Strong version of the linguistic relativity hypothesis:

Language determines thought. Speakers of different languages see the world in different, incompatible ways, because their languages impose different conceptual structures on their experiences.

Weak version of the linguistic relativity hypothesis: Language influences thinking

Does language affect thought?

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Linguistic relativity

Lexical and syntactic differences are accompanied by non-linguistic cognitive differences.

Thus, cultural differences in thinking are accompanied by linguistic differences between cultures.

Linguistic determinism One might argue that cultural differences in thinking lead to

language differences or in a a cultural determinism for linguistic ability

Linguistic determinism is the exact reverse of this. Whorf posited that cultural thinking differences were the direct

result of differences in their languages

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

“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? Whorf’s famous example

“Empty gasoline drums”

Linguistic form

Does language affect thought? Whorf’s famous example

“Empty gasoline drums”

Linguistic meanings

Mental interpretations

Nonlinguistic observables

empty

Container no longer contains intended contents

drum no longer contains gasoline

gasoline drum without gasoline

null and void, negative, inert

drum is no longer dangerous; okay to smoke cigarettes

worker smokes cigarettes

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

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

Some of the evidence: Hopi Indians have only one word to describe

everything that can fly but which is not a bird. Whorf claimed Inuit have several terms for snow

Kaner ‘be frosty’ Kanevvluk ‘fine snow’ Natquik ‘drifting snow’ Natquigte ‘for snow to drift

along the ground’ And more

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 Pullum’s Great Eskimo Hoax (1991)

Some of the evidence: Hopi Indians have only one word to describe

everything that can fly but which is not a bird. Whorf claimed Inuit have seven terms for snow

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.

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

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.

Cultural Variations 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.

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Color Terms Berlin and Kay (1969): Color hierarchy

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 Whorf’s hypotheses They suggest a universal physiological basis for color

naming

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Color Terms So do naming practices influence our ability

to distinguish or remember colors? Brown & Lenneberg, 1954

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.

Describe the study and findings (pg 383)

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Hieder (1972) (Rosch, 1973[same person]) Dani tribe of New Guinea use only two color names They had no difficulty in recognizing color chips that

were from an initial presentation from among distractors 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 Whorf’s hypothesis.

Color TermsQuickTime™ and a

TIFF (LZW) decompressorare needed to see this picture.

Comparative judgements 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

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Color Terms

Kay & Kempton, (1984) Results Predictions: 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

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Color Terms

Higher Cognitive Processes Color naming is not a very complex cognitive

process: What about more complex mental processes?

Counting and other Arithmetic processes Reasoning

Probably will run out of time here, skip to a short summary slide for these and the conclusions

Counting & Arithmetic Greenberg (1978) has identified some cultures where

the only number terms correspond to one, two, many. In such cultures there is obviously a limit to counting

progression and comparing the size of different sets of items

Different languages terms for numbers also has effects on arithmetic

Counting & Arithmetic 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)

Reasoning In attempts to determine ability of counter-factual

reasoning different researchers have reached different conclusions.

The basis for their differing conclusions is centered on the equivalence of the statements translation from one language to another

This problem was avoided by Hoffman, Lau & Johnson(1986) in a study of codability of personality descriptions

Reasoning In English the term artistic also conveys the notion

that a person is intense, moody, and unconventional In Chinese the term Shi Gu conveys that a person is

worldly, reserved, social adept, and devoted to family Neither language has a corresponding term for

artistic or Shi gu

Reasoning In the study the terms and their the list of traits were

presented for both terms in Chinese or in English They then wrote an impression of the person and

answered questions requiring inferences of character and behavior

The interesting result is that in both languages when a global term was available they tended to elaborate on the term with stereotypical traits.

When the global term was not available descriptions adhered more closely to listed traits.

These results hold for bilingual speakers (Hoffman et. al., 1986)

This indicates we are most likely to judge people in term of a category or stereotype if that category is easily coded in our language

Reasoning

Conclusions At this point it is apparent that the strong view

of Whorf’s hypothesis is not supported. 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?