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Linguistics lecture #9Linguistics lecture #9

November 23, 2006November 23, 2006

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OverviewOverview

• Modularity again

• How visual cognition affects language

• How spatial cognition affects language

• Can language affect visual cognition?

• Sign languages as spatial languages

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The modular mind?The modular mind?

• Language seems to have independent modules (e.g. syntax vs. phonology)

• Is language a module as a whole?

• If so, it should not interact deeply with other aspects of cognition, including:- visual cognition (seeing)

- spatial cognition (understanding shapes and relations between things in 3D space)

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LANGUAGE

Physical world

Non-linguistic cognition

Physical world

MIND

Remember this model?Remember this model?

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How do the interactions work?How do the interactions work?

• Can the structure of non-linguistic cognition affect the structure of linguistic cognition?

• Can the structure of linguistic cognition affect the structure of non-linguistic cognition?

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Color vision and color wordsColor vision and color words

• People of every culture see colors (of course), but they don’t talk about them the same way

• Some languages have fewer basic color words than others

• But looking across many languages, there seems to be a pattern….

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Systems of color wordsSystems of color words

BLACK WHITE

RED GREEN

YELLOW

BLUE

BROWN PINK

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Language is affected byLanguage is affected byvisual processingvisual processing

• All light-sensitive cells in the eye can distinguish BLACK vs. WHITEWHITE

• There are special cells sensitive just to RED and GREEN

• A more complex system of cells handles YELLOWYELLOW and BLUE

• BROWN and PINK are complex mixtures of the previous colors

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What about spatial cognition?What about spatial cognition?

• Spatial cognition involves two distinct processing systems:

- The WHAT system processes the shape of objects (so you know what they are)

- The WHERE system processes the location of objects (so you know where they are)

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Where Where What What

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Does this affect language?Does this affect language?

• Some have argued that it does, since human grammar also has its own separate WHAT vs. WHERE systems:

- WHAT is described by nouns, which often distinguish fine details of shape

- WHERE is described by prepositions ( 前置詞 ), which often only care about general spatial relationships, and ignore shape

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Shape and nounsShape and nouns

• When does a “plate” become a “bowl”?

• Is it the same for “ 盤子” vs. “ 碗” ?

• Are the categories sharply distinguished?

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Locations and prepositionsLocations and prepositions

• When is something “on” something else?

• Is it the same for “ 上” ?

• Does the category have sharp boundaries? ceiling

floor

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Nouns Nouns Prepositions Prepositions

• They are grammatically quite different too.

This is a corp. Which one is a corp?This is acorp the square. Which one is acorp the square?

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What about the other way?What about the other way?

• It makes sense that non-linguistic cognition can affect language, since that fits with the model I showed earlier.

• But is it possible that language can affect non-linguistic cognition too?

• A linguist named Whorf thought that it could, so this is called Whorf’s hypothesis

• If it’s true, language isn’t really a module!

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Do color words affect vision?Do color words affect vision?

• Many languages have just one word for BLUE and GREEN.

• Tarahumara, a Mexican language, is like this.

• So is (old style) Taiwanese ( 青 ).

• Do speakers of such languages perceive these colors differently from speakers of a language like English?

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A Whorfian experimentA Whorfian experiment

• Speakers of English and Tarahumara were shown colored squares

(a very good“blue”)

(a very good“green”)

Which color is the middle one more similar to?

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What happened?What happened?

• English speakers made much sharper decisions than the Tarahumara speakers

• But was this because these two groups perceived color differently?

• No. Later experiments showed that they were merely using linguistic labels to help finish the task: perception was the same.

• Experiments like this convince linguists that Whorf’s hypothesis is mostly false.

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What about sign languages?What about sign languages?

• Spoken language represent “what” and “where” abstractly, with sounds

• Sign languages often represent these directly, as actual shapes (of the hands) and actual locations (movements of the hands through space)

• Sign language is thus more iconic: its forms reflect meaning more directly

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Shape in sign languageShape in sign language

• Although signs are often iconic, this doesn’t mean that all sign languages are the same!

• Guess how these languages sign “tree”:

American Sign Language Danish S.L. Chinese S.L.

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Space in sign languageSpace in sign language

• In all sign languages, verb relationships are represented in space

• Here are forms for “give” in ASL:

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So where is sign language So where is sign language processed in the brain?processed in the brain?

• Language is generally processed in the left hemisphere of the cerebral cortex

• Spatial information is generally processed in the right hemisphere

• So where would a “spatial language” be processed?

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ASL and brain damageASL and brain damage

• This was studied by looking at deaf signers of ASL who had brain damage

• Some had brain damage in the left hemisphere

• Some had brain damage in the right hemisphere

• What were the results…?

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Effect on nonlinguistic spaceEffect on nonlinguistic space

“Copy this picture”:

Left hemisphere damage:

Right hemisphere damage:

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Effect on linguistic “space”Effect on linguistic “space”

Normal:

Left hemisphere damage:

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• Language may be a module, but it must interact with nonlinguistic cognition

• Language is affected by visual and spatial cognition (color words, nouns, prepositions)

• The reverse is probably not true (Whorf was mostly wrong)

• Sign languages use space, but it’s processed in the left hemisphere