Language and Thought

Module 30

1
Thinking and Language

Language
 Language Structure
 Language Development

Thinking & Language

 Language Influences Thinking
 Thinking in Images

2
Thinking and Language

Animal Thinking and

Language
 Do Animals Think?
 Do Animals Exhibit Language?
 The Case of the Apes

3
 Language
Our spoken, written, or gestured word, it is the
way we communicate meaning to ourselves and
others.

M. & E. Bernheim/ Woodfin Camp & Associates

4
Language transmits culture.
 Language Structure
Phonemes: The smallest distinctive sound unit
in a spoken language. For example:

bat, has three phonemes b · a · t

chat, has three phonemes ch · a · t

5
 Language Structure
Morpheme: The smallest unit that carries
meaning may be a word or a part of a word. For
example:

Milk = milk
Pumpkin = pump . kin
Unforgettable = un · for · get · table

6
 Structuring Language

Phonemes Basic sounds (about 40) … ea, sh.

Smallest meaningful units (100,000)

Morphemes … un, for.

Meaningful units (290,500) … meat,

Words pumpkin.

Composed of two or more words

Phrase (326,000) … meat eater.

Composed of many words (infinite)

Sentence … She opened the jewelry box.

7
 Grammar
A system of rules in a language that enables us
to communicate with and understand others.

Grammar

Semantics Syntax

8
 Semantics
Set of rules by which we derive meaning from
morphemes, words, and sentences. For
example:

Semantic rule tells us that adding –ed to the

word laugh means that it happened in the past.

9
 Syntax
The rules for combining words into
grammatically sensible sentences. For example:

In English syntactical rule is that adjectives come

before nouns; white house. In Spanish it is
reversed; casa blanca.

10
 Language Development
Children learn their
native languages much
before learning to add
2+2.

We learn on average

Time Life Pictures/ Getty Images

(after age 1) 3,500 words
a year, amassing 60,000
words by the time we
graduate high school.
11
 When do we learn language?

Babbling Stage:
beginning at 4 months
the infant
spontaneously utters
various sounds, like ah-
goo. Babbling is not
imitation of adult
speech.

12
 When do we learn language?
One-Word Stage: Beginning at or around the first
birthday, a child starts to speak one-word and
makes family adults understand him. The word
doggy may mean look at the dog out there.

13
 When do we learn language?
Two-Word Stage: Before the 2nd year a child
starts to speak in two-word sentences. This
form of speech is called telegraphic speech in
which the child speaks like a telegram —“go
car,” means that, I would like to go for a ride in the
car.

14
 When do we learn language?
Longer phrases: After telegraphic speech
children start uttering longer phrases (Mommy
get ball), with syntactical sense and by early
elementary school they are enjoying humor.

You never starve in the desert because of all the

sand-which-is there.

15
When do we learn language?

16
 Explaining Language Development

• Operant Learning: Skinner (1957, 1985)

believed that language development can be
explained on the basis of learning principles,
such as association, imitation and
reinforcement.

17
 Explaining Language Development

2. Inborn Universal Grammar: Chomsky (1959,

1987) opposed Skinners ideas and suggested
that rate of language acquisition is so fast
that it cannot be explained through learning
principles, and thus most of it was inborn.

18
 Explaining Language Development

3. Statistical Learning and Critical periods:

Well before our first birthday, our brains are
discerning word breaks by statistically
analyzing which syllables in hap-py-ba-by go
together. These statistical analysis are
learned during critical periods of child
development.

19
 Eye of Science/ Photo Researchers, Inc.

Michael Newman/ Photo Edit, Inc.

David Hume Kennerly/ Getty Images

Genes design the mechanisms for a
Genes, Brain & Language

language, and experience modifies the brain.

20
 Language & Age
New language learning gets harder with age.

21
 Language & Thinking
Thinking and language intricately intertwine.

Rubber Ball/ Almay

22
 Language influences Thinking
Linguistic Determinism: Whorf’s (1956)
suggested that language determines the way we
think, e.g., Hopi, he noted, did not have past
tense for verbs therefore Hopis could not think
readily about the past.

23
 Language influences Thinking
When a language provides words for objects or
events we can think about these objects more
clearly and retain them. It is easier to think about
two colors with two different names (A) than
colors with the same name (B) (Özgen, 2004).

24
 Word Power

Increasing word power pays its dividends. It

pays for speakers and deaf who learn a sign
language.

25
Linguistic Determinism Questioned

People from Papua New Guinea without our

words for colors and shapes still perceived
them as we do (Rosch, 1974).

26
 Thinking in Images
To a large extent thinking is language based. Like
when alone we talk to ourselves. However, we
also think in images.

We don’t think in words, when:

1. When we open the hot water tap.

2. When we are riding our bicycle.

27
 Images and Brain
Imagining a physical activity activates the same
brain regions as when actually performing the
activity.

Jean Duffy Decety, September 2003

28
 Language and Thinking
Traffic runs both ways between thinking and
language.

29
 Animals & Language
Do animals have a language?

Honey bees communicate by dancing. The dance

moves clearly indicate the direction of the nectar. 30
 Do animals think?
Common cognitive
skills in humans and
apes.
1. Concept formation.
2. Insight

William Munoz
3. Problem Solving
4. Culture African grey parrot sorts red
blocks from green balls.
5. Mind?

31
 Insight
Chimpanzees show insightful behaviors when
solving problems.

Sultan uses sticks to get food. 32

 33

Courtesy of Jennifer Byrne, c/o Richard Byrne,

Department of Psychology, University of St. Andrews, Scotland
Chimpanzee fishing for ants.
Problem Solving

solving problems much

Apes are famous for

like us.
 Animal Culture
Animals display custom and culture learnt and
transmitted over generations.

Michael Nichols/ National Geographic Society

Copyright Amanda K Coakes

Dolphins using sponges as Chimpanzee mother using and

forging tools. teaching a young how to use
a stone hammer. 34
 Mental States
Can animals infer mental states in themselves
and others?

To some extent. Chimps and orangutans (and

dolphins) have used mirrors to inspect
themselves if a researcher has put a paint spot on
their face or bodies.

35
 Do Animals Exhibit Language?
There is no doubt that
animals communicate.

Vervet monkeys,
whales and even honey
bees communicate

Copyright Baus/ Kreslowski

with members of their
specie and other
species.
Rico (collie) has a
200-word vocabulary 36
 The Case of Apes
Chimps do not have vocal apparatus for
human-like speech (Hayes & Hayes,1951).
Gardner and Gardner (1969) therefore used
American Sign Language (ASL) to train Washoe
(a chimp), who learnt 182 signs by age 32.

37
 Gestured Communication
Animals show communication through gestures
as do humans. It is possible that vocal speech
developed from gestures during evolution.

38
 Sign Language
American Sign Language (ASL) has been
instrumental in teaching a communication
form to chimpanzees.

Paul Fusco/ Magnum Photos

When asked, chimpanzee uses
a sign to say it is a baby 39
 Computer Assisted Language
Others have shown that bonobo pygmy chimpanzees
can learn even larger vocabularies and perhaps
semantic nuances in learning language (Savage-
Rumbaugh, 1991). Kanzi and Panbanish developed
vocabulary for hundreds of words and phrases.

Copyright of Great Ape Trust of Iowa

40
 Criticism
1. Apes gain their limited vocabularies with great
deal of difficulty unlike children who develop
vocabularies at amazing rates.
2. Chimpanzees can make signs to get rewards,
just as pigeon pecks at the key gets reward. But
pigeon has not learnt a language.
3. Chimpanzees use signs meaningfully but lack
syntax.
4. Presented with ambiguous information people
tend to see what they want to see.

41
 Conclusions
If we say that animals can use meaningful
sequences of signs to communicate means
language, our understanding would be naive…
Steven Pinker (1995) concludes, “chimps do not
develop language.”

42