Language, thought and communication Flashcards
1
Q
What is piaget’s theory of language
A
Thoughts comes before language
2
Q
How is language developed in the sensorimotor stage
A
- Babies copy sounds they hear others make
- Start talking at the end of their first year
3
Q
How is language developed in the preoperational stage
A
- Can talk about things not present (feelings/future etc)
- Language is egocentric
4
Q
How is language developed in the concrete operational stage
A
- Mature and logical language
- Not egocentric
- Creates their own ideas
5
Q
How is language developed in the formal operational stage
A
- Language used to talk about abstract/theoretical ideas
6
Q
Strengths of Piaget’s language theory
A
- Was done on his own children (all behaviour was natural
7
Q
Limitations of Piaget’s language theory
A
- May be biased, may have not recorded any date that didn’t fit his theory
- Was only done on middle class swiss children, can’t generalise to other cultures/upbringings
7
Q
Sapir-Whorf language theory
A
Language influences thoughts
8
Q
Strong version of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
A
- If your language has no word for something it’s impossible to think about it (why its difficult to translate concepts between languages
- The Inuits have 27 different words for snow, the way they think about snow is different to someone who only speaks English
9
Q
Weak version of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
A
- Words help “carve up” the world (you can still imagine something and have no word for it)
- e.g. English speakers can think of different types of snow without having words for the
variations, but having words for the different types of snow makes it easier to
tell them apart - This version is preferred
10
Q
Strengths of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
A
- Has supporting research
- Tribes who have less words for different colours are slower at recognising certain colours
- How a word is described can influence how participants recall them, eg glasses/dumbell
11
Q
Limitations of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
A
- Makes assumptions - lacks validity
- There is little difference between amount of english and inuit words for snow, but the inuit language uses suffixes (polysynthesis)
12
Q
Aim of Von Frisch’s bee study
A
To investigate how bees communicate the location of food with each other
13
Q
Method of Von Frisch’s bee study
A
- Bees were kept in a glass hive to be observed
- Bees were fed sugar water from different locations, either 10m from the hive, or 300m
- After they ate they were marked with paint so they can be identified
14
Q
Results of Von Frisch’s bee study
A
- The bees danced differently depending on how far the food was
- Food was closer = round dance
- Food was far = waggle dance (figure of 8)
- 60% of bees who saw the dances found the food, indicating they understood the signals
