Lecture 8: Language Diversity I Flashcards Preview

🚫 JLP374H1S: Psychology of Language with R. Tollan > Lecture 8: Language Diversity I > Flashcards

Flashcards in Lecture 8: Language Diversity I Deck (9)
Loading flashcards...
1
Q

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (3)

A
  • The words and structures of a language can affect how the speakers of that language conceptualize or think about the world.
  • Logic is problematic: the number of words used isn’t evidence about how people think, only evidence of what they’re able to encode in their language.
  • One has to show that linguistic categories affect non-linguistic thinking → experiments can’t prove this.
2
Q

linguistic relativity (3)

A
  • “Language is the mold into which the mind is poured.”
  • Differences among languages are mirrored in differences in thoughts of their speakers.
  • People’s thoughts, perceptions, and memories are determined by the categories and structures made available by language.
3
Q

Kay and Kempton (1984) (7)

A
  • Chose three closely neighboring color chips from the Munsell color chart.
  • Subjects told 2 of the colors were very similar to each other, but that one was more distant from the other two; identified the “odd one out.”
  • Would participants sort by wavelength or lexical divide?
  • Researchers calculated a score of perceived distance between critical pairs of color chips, and compared these to measures of objective distance.
  • English speakers went with color labels (picked the blue as odd one out) → judged the distance between a “blue” and a “green” chip to be bigger than the distance between two shades of “blue,” even if the objective distances were identical.
  • Tarahumara speakers (who only have one word for blue and green) went with wavelength (picked the more green as odd one out) → didn’t exaggerate the distance between colors across the green/blue boundary.
  • But perhaps this result doesn’t reflect differences in perception so much as availability of appropriate labels.
4
Q

Winawer et al. (2007) (15)

A
  • Color naming study measuring response time to see the effects during color processing.
    • Time constraint didn’t allow for use of colour names as a fall-back.
  • English has one word for blue, but Russian speakers always differentiate between light blue (goluboy) and dark blue (siniy).
  • Subjects saw three squares of colors: one square on top, two on the bottom. One of the bottom squares was identical in color to the one on the top.
  • Told to quickly press a button to indicate if the left or right square was a match.
  • Results: Both groups took longer to respond if the two bottom squares were very close in color than if they were further apart.
    • Russian speakers: two colors that were very similar but sat on opposite sides of the siniy/goluboy fence → responses faster than if the two colors would both be classified as either siniy or goluboy.
    • English speakers: no advantage for colors that straddled the light/dark blue divide.
    • Suggests that Russian speakers are sensitized to this particular distinction in color.
  • Verbal (linguistic) interference task: memorize a string of numbers before the color task and repeat them afterwards.
    • Russian-speakers took longer when the colors straddled the divide versus when they belonged in the same category; i.e. interference removed this facilitation effect.
  • Spatial interference task: remember a spatial pattern.
    • The facilitation effect was seen again in this task.
  • Conclusion: Categories in language affect performance on colour perception tasks.
    • Language can draw attention to certain conceptual distinctions and give us another code for remembering and computing with certain concepts.
5
Q

grammaticalization of concepts (3)

A
  • In English, expression of tense is obligatory.
  • e.g. He walk-s vs. He walk-ed vs. *He walk
  • However, in languages like Mandarin this isn’t necessary.
6
Q

lexicalization of concepts (3)

A
  • Languages make systematic choices about which concepts they lexicalize (i.e. express in words).
  • Most verbs in English (e.g. roll, slip, slide, limp, etc.) express motion and manner.
    • However, motion verbs in Spanish express motion and path.
    • e.g. The bottle rolled into the cave.
    • *La botella rodo en la cueva.
    • La botella entro en la cueva, rodando.
7
Q

Papagragou et al. (2008) (9)

A
  • Do English speakers pay more attention to the manner of motion, and Greek speakers to path (since Greek verbs lexicalize motion and path)?
  • Participants looked at an image of a girl skateboarding into a net.
  • Measured their eye movements.
  • English speakers focussed on the skateboard, i.e. manner details.
  • Greek speakers focused on the net more, i.e. path endpoint.
  • But this effect was only seen if participants knew they had to describe the event afterwards.
    • This effect wasn’t seen for a non-verbal memory task.
  • Conclusion: lexical features of language do affect visual attention, but only when the relevant task involves language.
    • Compare this to Winawer et al. (2007); linguistic interference impacted performance on color perception.
8
Q

language universals (7)

A
  • Properties hypothesized to be common to all human languages. These can be divided into three groups:
  • Absolute universals (all languages);
    • Vowels and consonants;
    • Core lexical categories (e.g. nouns, verbs);
    • Sentences with subjects (but different diagnostics as to what a subject is).
  • Universal tendencies (most languages);
  • Implicational universals (“if a language has X, then it has Y”).
9
Q

preferred argument structure (9)

A
  • The preference to keep the object of and avoid lexicalizing the subject of a transitive verb.
  • Regarded as universal; note that it’s merely a tendency, not an obligation.
  • Transitive subjects are somehow more peripheral in the discourse profile (i.e. not attached to the verb, as the object is).
    • Is this why they’re most salient in our mental representation? (Think back to pronoun resolution).
    • Or is it because they’re most salient that they can be dropped?
    • Objects (and subjects of intransitive verbs) tend to be lexicalized.
  • About 25% of the world’s languages actually instantiate this in their grammar (i.e. mark the transitive subjects).
    • These are known as ergative languages.
    • But preferred argument structure is found in many languages, whether they’re ergative or not.