LANGUAGE IN CONTEXT

• Language


  • How it affects the way we think
  • How our social context influences our use of it
  • What studies of the human brain reveal about it
• Once a particular label has been given, perceiving the same figure differently is difficult
• Language affects memory


  • "Washing clothes"
  • Leading questions in eyewitness testimony
• Sapir-Whorf hypothesis


  • Strong interpretation: Thoughts and behavior are determined by language
  • Milder interpretation: Thoughts and behavior are influenced by language
• More evidence against the strong interpretation of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis than for it
• Linguistic relativity studies


  • Bilinguals maintain they "think" differently in different languages
  • Differences in lexicons support lexical relativity when language differences lead to differing mental structures
• Early linguistic relativity study (Carroll & Casagrande, 1958)


  1. Navajo-dominant children focused more on form

  2. English-dominant Navajo children focused less on form

  3. Caucasian children from Boston also focused more on form
• All languages seem to take their basic color terms from a set of just 11 color names
• When only some of the color names are used, the naming of colors falls into a hierarchy of five levels
• Linguistic relativity


  Color categories vary, depending on the speaker's language
• Kay & Kempton (1984) study

  1. English speakers showed categorical perception, made the color either blue or green

  2. Tarahumara speakers did not show categorical perception (had no labels)
• Grammatical gender


  • English does not assign a gender to animate vs. inanimate objects
  • Spanish marks gender with morphological info carried by pronouns, determiners, nouns, and adjectives
• Boroditsky et al. (2003) experiment


  1. Spanish and German speakers remembered object-name pairs better when the gender of the proper name given to an object was consistent with the grammatical gender of the object name in their native language

  2. Spanish and German speakers produced more masculine properties for masculine objects and more feminine properties for feminine objects
• Boroditsky et al. (2003) concluded that grammatical gender focuses speakers of different languages on different aspects of objects, supporting the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
• Linguistic relativity studies


  • Hoffman, Lau, & Johnson (1986) found that bilinguals fluent in Chinese and English were more impacted by the "shi gE" stereotype when reading a passage in Chinese compared to English
• Bilingualism


  • Early research argued it was harmful, but later research showed advantages like enhanced executive functions, delayed onset of dementia, and better performance on tests of nonverbal intelligence
  • Disadvantages include smaller vocabularies and slower lexical access
• Additive bilinguals


  Learn a second language without loss to the native language
• Subtractive bilinguals


  Learn a second language that interferes with the native language
• Simultaneous bilinguals


  Learn two languages from birth
• Sequential bilinguals


  First learn one language and then another
• Factors influencing bilingualism fluency


  The earlier in life a second language is learned, the more fluent the speaker will become
• Single-system hypothesis


  Two languages are represented in one system
• Dual-system hypothesis


  Two languages are represented by separate systems
• Pidgins


  Communication between two language groups, often used between immigrants and locals or missionaries and natives
• Creoles


  Complete languages that develop from pidgins over time, with native speakers and expanded form and grammar
• Dialects


  Regional varieties of a language distinguished by features like vocabulary, syntax, and pronunciation
• Learning a second language increases the gray matter density in the left inferior parietal cortex, which is positively correlated with proficiency and negatively correlated with age of acquisition
• Slips of the tongue

  Speech errors where we mean to say one thing but utter another, which can be analyzed to assess what level of speech production was incorrect
• Types of slips of the tongue

  • Anticipation
  • Perseveration
  • Substitution
  • Reversal
  • Spoonerisms
  • Malapropisms
  • Insertions/deletions of sounds
• Metaphor


  Two nouns placed together to note similarities, with four key elements: tenor, vehicle, ground, and tension
• Pragmatics


  Knowing what to say, how to say it, and when to say it or how to be around other people; the study of discourse and conversational skills, and the situational determinants of language use
• Metaphor


  Two nouns placed together to note similarities
• Simile


  Introduces the words like or as into a comparison between items
• Metaphor


  • Tenor
  • Vehicle
  • Ground
  • Tension
• Traditional view of metaphor

  Emphasizes the similarities
• Anomaly view of metaphor


  Emphasizes the differences
• Domain-interaction view of metaphor

  Combination of the traditional and anomaly views
• Pragmatics


  Knowing what to say, how to say it, and when to say it or how to be around other people
• Pragmatic skills


  • Establish common ground
  • Maintain a topic or change topic appropriately
  • Use appropriate eye contact
• Pragmatic skills


  • Distinguish how to talk and behave toward different communicative partners
  • Respond to gestures and non-verbal aspects of language