8. Linguistic Relativity

Question 1

Outline the range of opinions about whether language influences cognition

Answer 1

Whorf: linguistic determinism
- Problems- success in translation and no language=no thought

Sapir and Slobin: linguistic relativity- effects of language on cognition are only when we’re using language

Fodor: linguistic modularity- language cannot affect perception

Question 2

How can we test if language affects perception?

Answer 2

We can use lexical differences between languages to compare whether they correlate with perception differences

These are often difficult to control on a wider scale

Question 3

Outline the studies testing language effect on cognition

Answer 3

Lexical differences:
- snow words
- colour perception
(Robertson et al., 2000)

Grammatical differences:
- grammatical gender
(Vigliocco et al., 2005)
- future time reference
(Chen, 2013)

Mapping space into words
- absolute vs relative frame of reference
(Majid et al., 2003)

Question 4

Outline the lexical differences studies

Answer 4

Boas/Whorf snow words Inuit
• Highly criticised by Pinker among others- not considered word roots
• Change in perception of snow down to experience differences

(Winawer et al., 2007)
Colour perception
• goluboy and siniy in Russian, blue in English
• Speeded colour discrimination task- within category and cross category
• English all within category and all slower as no cross-category advantage
• Disappears with verbal interference
• English speakers faster overall

(Thierry et al., 2009)
• ghalazio and ble in Greek
• Mismatch negativity MMN- evokes brain potential- preattentive effects of language on change detection
• MMN no difference for green and blue for English speakers, but difference for Greek

Question 5

Outline the grammatical studies

Answer 5

(Chen, 2013)
• Future time reference- strong and weak
• Average savings rates for 35 countries- some correlation between strong future time reference and lower savings
• Many variables, only a correlation

(Sutter et al., 2018)
• 860 Merano children, half Italian speaking (strong FTR), half German (weak FTR)
• 2 sweet tokens now or 3-5 in 4 weeks
• German speaking more likely to wait than Italian
• Many controls- IQ, gender, risk taking propensity
• Households May differ culturally

Question 6

Outline mapping space into words

Answer 6

(Majid, 2002)
Suggests that conceptual frames of reference in space are influenced by the particular language of the speaker. Outlines some arguments supporting this.

(Boroditsky, 2001)
• Mandarin speakers think of time vertically (referred to like that in language) faster to confirm month positions when just seen vertical array of objects
• Reverse for English speakers
• However, not been replicated

Question 7

What is categorical perception? Give another example of it other than colour perception

Answer 7

(Harnad, 2003)
• Can be inborn or induced by learning
• Results In warping of perceived similarities and differences so as to compress things into categories

(Xu et al., 2006)
• Differences in categorical perception of speech stimuli in English and Chinese groups