Language and Thought and Unusual language abilities Flashcards
Embodied Cognition
The experience of living, sensing, and perceiving the world fundamentally informs our conception of it
conceptual metaphors:
- im in love, he fell into depression.
Not just figures of speech but fundamental conceptual frameworks
language is not abstract and modular
Embodied cognition - up and down
Respond slower when the type of word doesn’t match the worlds orientation
mental stimulation directs spatial attention
Embodied cognition and imagery
Typical vs atypical primes
the colour we expect something to be is automatically evoked by language
Untranslatable words?
words that are impossible to understand between languages
Sapit- Whorf Hypothesis
does the language you speak shape the way you think?
Linguistic determinism: Features of language determine/ constrain patterns of thought
Whorf - look at the patterns a language does/doesn’t have
claimed that HOPI( native american language) has “no words, grammatical forms, construction or expressions that refer directly to time”
Linguistic Relativity
Features of language, influence patterns of thought
Colour categories:
Categorical perception: Continuous quantities divided categorically - where are the boundaries between colours?
Berinmo Tribe of New Guinea
- as 5 basic colour terms, England has 11
Across tasks categorical perception of colour was aligned with colour terms
Suggest that perception/thought is guided by language categories
Who Dunnit?
linguistic relativity
Intentional / accidental
English vs spanish: intentional (agentive) Accidental ( Non-agentive)
watched videos of both kind of events - for intentional events there was no difference
For accidental events, English speakers used more agentive descriptions (i.e. she broke) than spanish speakers.
Unusual language ability
sign language
Grapheme-Colour Synaesthesia
Language talent
Rap battles
Why study people with unusual language abilities?
aid/improve lives - raise awareness for diversity
Suggest viable therapies, treatments or aids for impaired ability
“stress test”
Sign language
is sign language a language?
yes - BSL and ASL are not dialects like British and American English
share some similar words but not mutually intelligible
Sign language recruits the same brain areas as spoken languages
Phonology: Spoken Vs Signed
Both Languages have phonemes: minimally distinctive units of language
Minimal pairs
Minimal pairs in spoken language - two words with different meaning that iffer only by one sound e.g. Pat/Bat/Cat
ASL also has minimal pairs
Differences to spoken language
Facial expressions obligatory for grammatical communication
What is Synaesthesia?
“mixing of the senses”
