Language Thought Communication Flashcards
Piagets theory about language key ideas
Language depends on thought. Children develop language by matching correct words to their existing knowledge. They understand the concept and develop a schema and then express their understanding of it.
Young children cannot be tough new words without a schema however they will not understand it until they are ready and will use it as a parrot.
Children start to speak in their sensorimotor stage. They understand the concept and then begin to use it.
Strength of Piagets language is that early development is not random.
Children start of by using two worded phrases such as Mummy sock . This demonstrates that they have some understanding before they start to talk. If they didn’t their early talk would just be a series of unconnected words.
Weakness of Piagets learning theory is that the Sapir wharf hypothesis suggests the opposite.
It claims that language comes before thought and the extreme version suggests that people can only think about and understand the world through the language available to them. This is supported by cross cultural studies. At least some times language may come first.
Another weakness of Piagets language theory is that schemes cannot be scientifically measured
We can’t ask young children about schemas and it is hard to prove their existence. Suggests theory is not based on solid and scientific evidence.
The Sapir horn hypothesis strong
Language determines thought - if a word had no particular word for a certain thought, object or idea then people who speak that language will have no way to thinking about it. This is why is is often hard to translate ideas from one language to another
Sapir Whorf hypothesis weak
Language influences thought. Does not determine the way we think. An English speaker can stick imagine the different types of snow that over 27 words in an Inuit language describe. However the words make it easier to think about the different kinds of snow and distinguish between them,
One weakness of the Sapir Whorf hypothesis is that the evidence from Boas may have exaggerated the differences in language between cultures
Other researchers suggested it because they think that there are only two real words for snow and the others are just variation which we have in English as well like sleet blizzard and flurry. This challenges the conclusions.
Another weakness is that just because a culture has more words doesn’t mean that the words came first
If the Inuit language does have more words for snow it is because it reflects the environment in which the population live - their experiences have led them to make finer distinctions between types of snow
One strength of the Sapir Whorf hypothesis is that it explains the link between language and intelligence
Bernstein (linguist ) thought that children from poorer background and middle class children speak with different codes of language. Bernstein suggested a poorer child will always fall behind in school as compared to a middle class child because they are spoken to in a restricted code as compared to an elaborated code in which they are explained for example why to sit down on the tube.
Whorfs hypothesis was investigated by himself in his study about the Hopi culture
He found that in the Hopi language there was no indication of time passing and that they would say they left on the seventh day instead of after a week. This means they are unable to refer to time passing and this influences the way they think about time
One weakness of Whorfs Hopi study
His conclusion about the language were based on one individual . Other people have argued that their understanding of the past present and future is not much different from English speakers and this means his conclusion lacks a firm basis.
Language affects recall study by Carmichael
Two groups shown same ambiguous pic with different description ie table or hourglass then asked to draw picture again. Found that depending on what the verbal description was the drawing was influenced and looked more like a table for example.
One weakness of Carmichael’s study about language affecting recall is that in everyday life we are not interpreting ambiguous information
In unambiguous situations we would not be affected by a label. Suggests his conclusions are hard to generalise
Brown and Lennenberg study on the Zuni on colour recall and language
They found that the Zuni has only one word for shaded fo yellow and orange and that they had trouble recognising and recalling couloirs of these variations
One weakeness of Brown and Lenneberg study with Zuni is that it is a cross cultural study so
Informations is often lost in translation and participants or researchers may misunderstand each other - may be able to distinguish colours but not conveyed to researchers so lacks validity
Berinimo study by Roberson supported Sapir Whorf hypothesis because
They only had five words for colour and had trouble distinguishing between colours that were not separate in the language for example green and blue.
One weakness of Berinimo study by Roberson is that Heiders study found different results
Dani people have two colour words that mean light and dark. They and English speakers were shown a colour chip and asked to match it in recall. They were no worse than the English speakers.
Von Frisch bee study aim
To describe the dances of beees and explain how these were abler to communicate information to each other
Von Frisch method
Observed bees then changed conditions like one food source close by and the other not close by about 300m away
Von Frisch results
Round dance - food is less than 100m away then dance like this in different directions
Waggeldance - straight part in middle of eight shows direction, slower the dance the further the pollen is
60% bees follow the directions to find food
One strength is that Von Frisch had scientific value
He furthered knowledge through his specific observations and was granted a Nobel for this
One weakness is another study showed that Von Frisch overlooked the importance of sound
Showed that if dance was performed in silence other bees would not go in search of food. Shows that sound may be an important factor
One weakness of Von Frisch’s study is that bees do not always respond to waggle dance
If food was placed in the middle of a lake on a boat bees would not follow it even if dance was shown. Likely because they prefer not to fly over water shows there is other forms of communication we still have not detected
