Language or Thinking?

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=140 BGCOLOR="#9966CC" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04100a20ezthtv.gif"> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Kings Psychology Network"><U><B>home</B></U></A><B>     |     </B><FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000099" FACE="Papyrus" ><I><B>King's Psychology Network</B></I></FONT></div> <div> <A HREF="id60.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Discussion Forum"><U>Discussion Forum</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id181.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="What is Psychology?Pre Post Definition"><U>What is Psychology?-Pre & Post Definition</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id241.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Overview of Psychology"><U>Overview of Psychology</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id61.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Research on Human and Animal Subjects"><U>Research on Human and Animal Subjects</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id168.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="History of Psychology"><U>History of Psychology</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id62.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Neuroscience: Brain Behavior"><U>Neuroscience: Brain & Behavior</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id118.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Sensation"><U>Sensation</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id119.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Perception"><U>Perception</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id121.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Development"><U>Development</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id63.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Evolutionary Psychology"><U>Evolutionary Psychology</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id179.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Motivation"><U>Motivation</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id180.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Emotion"><U>Emotion</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id64.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Learning"><U>Learning</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id145.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Memory"><U>Memory</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id146.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Thinking Language"><U>Thinking & Language</U></A>   |   <B>Language or Thinking?</B>   |   <A HREF="id205.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE=" Thinking Without Language?"><U> Thinking Without Language?</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id206.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Language Development"><U>Language & Development</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id147.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Animal Learning, Language Cognition"><U>Animal Learning, Language & Cognition</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id148.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Intelligence"><U>Intelligence</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id65.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Personality"><U>Personality</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id167.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Non Ordinary States of Consciousness"><U>Non Ordinary States of Consciousness</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id120.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Social Psychology"><U>Social Psychology</U></A></div> <div> <B>Language or Thinking?</B></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#CCFF66" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>Read the excerpt from your textbook and then answer the questions below:</B></div> <div> <B>Does Language Determine The Way We Think?</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Many native English speakers, including most Americans, are monolingual.   Most humans are bilingual or multilingual.  Does monolingualism limit people's ability to comprehend the thinking of other cultures?</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Back To:</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Course Syllabus PSY 200"><U><B>Course Syllabus-Psy 20</B></U></A><B>0</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id53.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Overview of Class SchedulePsy 200"><U><B>Class Schedule-Psy 20</B></U></A><B>0</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id32.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Lessons Handouts"><U><B>Lessons & Handouts - Psy 2</B></U></A><B>00</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Related Learning Links"><U><B>Related Learning Links - Psy 20</B></U></A><B>0</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id234.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Related ReadingsPsy 200"><U><B>Related Readings-PSY 200</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id60.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Discussion Forum"><U><B>Discussion Forum - Psy 20</B></U></A><B>0</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id60.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Discussion Forum"><U><B>Discussion Forum - Psy 20</B></U></A><B>0</B></div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=340 BGCOLOR="#CCFF66" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="639" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 3006 WIDTH="635"><div> <B>Language Influences Thinking?</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>    </B> Linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf contended that language determines the way we think. According to Whorf's (1956) linguistic determinism hypothesis, different languages impose different conceptions of reality: “Language itself shapes a man's basic ideas.” The Hopi, Whorf noted, have no past tense for their verbs. Therefore, he contended, a Hopi could not so readily think about the past.</div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="507" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER BGCOLOR=#00FFFF HEIGHT= 67 ><NOBR><div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="482" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER BGCOLOR=#FFC0CB HEIGHT= 38 WIDTH="478"><div> <B>linguistic determinism:</B>   <I><B>Whorf's hypothesis that  language determines the way we think.</B></I></div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> Whorf's hypothesis would probably not occur to people who speak only one language and view that language as simply a vehicle for thought. But to those who speak two dissimilar languages, such as English and Japanese, it seems obvious that a person thinks differently in different languages (Brown, 1986). Unlike English, which has a rich vocabulary for self-focused emotions such as anger, Japanese has many words for interpersonal emotions such as sympathy (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Many bilinguals report that they even have a different sense of self, depending on which language they are using (Matsumoto, 1994). After emigrating from Asia to North America, bilinguals may even reveal different personalities when taking the same personality test in their two languages (Dinges & Hull, 1992). Michael Ross, Elaine Xun, and Anne Wilson (2002) demonstrated this by inviting China-born, bilingual University of Waterloo students to describe themselves in English or Chinese. When describing themselves in English, their self-descriptions were typically Canadian: They expressed mostly positive self-statements and moods. When responding in Chinese, they were typically Chinese: They reported more agreement with Chinese values and roughly equal positive and negative self-statements and moods. Their language use seemed to shape how they thought of themselves.</div> <bR> <div> Learn a language and you learn about a culture. When a language becomes extinct-the likely fate of most of the world's 6000 remaining languages-the world loses the culture and thinking that hang on that language. “To destroy a people, destroy their language,” observed poet Joy Harjo.</div> <div> To say that language <I>determines</I> the way we think is much too strong. A Papua New Guinean without our words for shapes and colors nevertheless perceives them much as we do (Rosch, 1974). But our words <I>influence</I> what we think (Hardin & Banaji, 1993; Özgen & Davies, 2002). Whether living in Britain or New Guinea, people use their language when classifying and remembering colors (Davidoff & others, 1999). If English is your native language, imagine that while viewing three colors you called two of them “yellow” and one of them “blue.” Later you would likely see and recall the yellows as being more similar. People in the Berinmo tribe, which has words for two different shades of yellow, would better recall the distinctions between the two yellows.</div> <div> Given the subtle influence of words on thinking, we do well to choose our words carefully. Does referring to women as <I>girls</I>-as in “the girls at the office”-assume women's lower status? Or the generic use of the pronoun <I>he</I>: Does it make any difference whether I write “A child learns language as <I>he</I> interacts with <I>his</I> caregivers” or “Children learn language as <I>they</I> interact with <I>their</I> caregivers”? Some argue it makes no difference because every reader knows “the masculine gender shall be deemed and taken to include females” (as the British Parliament declared in 1850).</div> <div> But is the generic <I>he</I> always taken to include females? Twenty studies consistently found that it is not (Henley, 1989). For example, Janet Hyde (1984) asked children to finish stories for which she gave them a first line, such as “When a kid goes to school, ______ often feels excited on the first day.” When Hyde used <I>he</I> in the blank, the children's stories were nearly always about males. <I>He or she</I> in the blank resulted in female characters about one-third of the time. Studies with adolescents and adults in North America and New Zealand have found similar effects of the generic <I>he</I> (Hamilton, 1988; Martyna, 1978; Ng, 1990). Sentences about “the artist and his work” tend to conjure up images of a man. Similarly, ambiguous actions taken by a “chairman of the board” seem to reveal an assertive and independent personality. The same actions taken by a “chairperson of the board” seem to reveal a warmer, more caring personality (McConnell & Fazio, 1996).</div> <bR> <div> Consider, too, that people use generic pronouns selectively, as in “the doctor … he” and “the secretary … she” (MacKay, 1983). If <I>he</I> and <I>his</I> were truly gender-free, we shouldn't skip a beat when hearing that “a nurse must answer his calls” or that “man, like other mammals, nurses his young.” That we are startled indicates that <I>his</I> carries a gender connotation that clashes with our idea of <I>nurse</I>.</div> <bR> <div> Language's power to influence thought makes vocabulary building a crucial part of education. To expand language is to expand the ability to think. In young children, thinking develops hand in hand with language (Gopnik & Meltzoff, 1986). And what is true for preschoolers is true for everyone: <I>It pays to increase your word power.</I> That's why most textbooks, including this one, introduce new words-to teach new ideas and new ways of thinking.</div> <bR> <div> Increased word power helps explain what McGill University researcher Wallace Lambert (1992; Lambert & others, 1993) calls the “bilingual advantage.” Bilingual children, who learn to inhibit their unspoken language, can better inhibit their attention to irrelevant information. If asked to say whether a sentence is grammatically correct (“Why is the cat barking so loudly?”) they can more efficiently focus on the grammar alone (Bialystok, 2001).</div> <bR> <div> Lambert helped devise a Canadian program that enables English-speaking children to be immersed in French. (From 1981 to 1999, the number of non-Quebec Canadian children immersed in French rose from 65,000 to 280,000 [Commissioner, 1999].) For most of their first three years in school, the English-speaking children are taught entirely in French, and thereafter gradually shift by the end of their schooling to classes mostly in English. Not surprisingly, the children attain a natural French fluency unrivaled by other methods of language teaching. Moreover, compared with similarly capable children in control conditions, they do so without detriment to their English fluency, and with increased aptitude scores, math scores, and appreciation for French-Canadian culture (Genesee & Gándara, 1999).</div> <bR> <div> So, for English-speaking Canadians, immersion followed by bilingual education pays dividends. Does bilingual education for children in a linguistic minority also pay dividends? Advocates of “English-only” education doubt it. They argue that bilingual programs are expensive, ineffective, and detrimental to non-English-speaking children's assimilation into their English-based cultures (Porter, 1998). But some studies find that such children benefit from bilingual education, if in “two-way” schools where they, together with English-speaking children, experience half their classes in English and half in their native language. Compared with non-English-speaking children dropped into English-only schools, those in the two-way schools tend to develop higher self-esteem. They drop out less frequently. And they eventually attain higher levels of academic achievement and English proficiency (August & Hakuta, 1998; Padilla & Benavides, 1992; Thomas & Collier, 1998).</div> <bR> <div> Increasing word power through sign language has also had great benefits for deaf people, who for thousands of years were viewed as incompetent to inherit property, marry, be educated, or have challenging work (Sacks, 1990). Since the spread of signed instruction, deaf people have shown that, when exposed to signing as preschoolers and then schooled in their language, they become fully literate. Deaf children with native sign fluency-learned, for example, as children of signing deaf parents-outperform other signing deaf children on measures of intelligence and academic achievement (Isham & Kamin, 1993). </div> <bR> <div> Whether we are deaf or hearing, language transforms experience. Language connects us to the past and the future. Language fuels our imagination. Language links us to one another.</div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="503" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER BGCOLOR=#FFC0CB HEIGHT= 57 WIDTH="499"><div> “All words are pegs to hang ideas on.”</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Henry Ward Beecher, </B><I><B>Proverbs from </B></I></div> <div> <I><B>Plymouth Pulpit</B></I><B>, 1887</B></div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="503" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER BGCOLOR=#FFC0CB HEIGHT= 58 WIDTH="499"><div> “Language is not a straight jacket.”</div> <div> <B>Psychologist Lila Gleitman, American Association for the Advancement of Science Convention, 2002</B></div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <I><B> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="493" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER BGCOLOR=#00FFFF HEIGHT= 76 WIDTH="489"><div> <I><B>Many native English speakers, including most Americans, are monolingual. Most humans are bilingual or multilingual. Does monolingualism limit people's ability to comprehend the thinking of other cultures?</B></I></div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></B></I></div> <bR> <bR> <div> Source:  Myers, David. (2004). Psychology, 7th Edition.  New York: Worth Publishers</div> <bR> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 26 WIDTH="635"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="26" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="635" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>