4.4.
Language, cognition,
and culture
D r . P h u o n g N g u y e n
4.4.1. Language and perception
4.4.2. Linguistic categories and culture
4.4.3. Discourse patterns and culture
4.4.4. Language, social class, and cognition
4.3.1. Language and perception
[Link] Verbal hygiene
• the way doctors view patients.
• impersonal and detached tone
• neatly avoid drawing attention to reasons for the failure of the treatment to
control symptoms.
• Hysterectomy is described as the treatment of choice, allowing the author
to avoid the issue of whose choice
[Link] Verbal hygiene
• Verbal hygiene
• used by Deborah Cameron
• describe how people respond to “the urge to meddle
in matters of language”.
• through prescriptions and proscriptions about what
constitutes “proper”, “correct” and “acceptable” usage
in a range of contexts, to using language as a political
weapon
• deliberate adoption of overtly non- sexist usages often
leads to accusations of “political correctness”.
[Link] Verbal hygiene
crippled
• a physical disability in New Zealand - regarded as tasteless and unacceptable
• handicapped, disabled were substituted.
Autism
• (person with autism/ ASD) vs. autistic person
• argue that the use of person-first rather than disability-first language →“normal”
person underneath the autism
• autistic people themselves → preferred disability-first language
Important to consult people about what they want to be called,
how they want to be addressed.
[Link] Verbal hygiene
• “precious” word- mongering - substituting one euphemism
for another basically – dismissive attitude
• Melanin Impoverished and the Seven Vertically Challenged
Individuals
• is indicated by exaggerations
• an obvious source of humor
• Those centrally concerned
• not humorous nor just one of political correctness
• as important as the issue of the use of broad or bird
to refer to a woman
• Those who are the butt of derogatory labels, linguistic
interventions – a challenge taken- for- granted offensive
assumptions.
[Link] Verbal hygiene
• Deborah Cameron - of the extent to which right- wing commentators have captured and redefined a
phrase introduced by the liberal left.
• coots and coconuts for ethnic minorities and queer and gay for homosexual
• relationship between language, society, attitudes, and perception.
• important to reflect on the effects such labels may have on young people’s attitudes and ways of
thinking about members of such groups
Whorf: the relationship between language and thought
Vocabulary and cognition
• a close relationship between language and perception.
• Benjamin Lee Whorf
• noticed that the particular words selected to describe
or label objects often influenced people’s perceptions
and behavior.
• Inuit
• for snow: 100 words,
• for seal: 30 words
• Saami (for reindeer: several hundred words)
• Arabic (for camel: about 1,000 words)
Whorf: the relationship between language and thought
Vocabulary and cognition the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of
impressions which has to be organized in our minds
– and this means largely by the linguistic systems in
our minds.
The agreement is implicit and unstated - BUT ITS
TERMS ARE ABSOLUTELY OBLIGATORY
• Common sense and reflection
• The experience of knowing there is a word for something but not being able to find it.
• We can translate between languages.
• The same ideas can be expressed in many different ways.
• Most linguists would add the following points:
• All languages have the same broad functions.
• Languages share important basic structural properties.
• More philosophical, and possibly more contentious, points include the following:
• People’s experiences and perceptions are more similar than different.
• We are capable of identifying “objective” reality.
• Human reasoning relies on universal logical principles.
Whorf: the relationship between language and thought
Linguistic determinism: the medium is the message
• Jessica Riskin - language constrains our cognitive
abilities.
• Sapir-Whorf philosophy:
• linguistic determinism
• Strong form hypothesis - perceptions of reality are determined
by the language people use.
• Example: a person who speaks Hopi perceives reality differently
to an English speaker because Hopi has different linguistic
(syntactic– semantic) categories than English.
• linguistic relativity
• Weaker form hypothesis- language influences our perception,
attitudes and thoughts, and potentially affects our behavior.
• Example: Many languages have a rich array of terms to describe
natural phenomena.
• is largely discredited
• is still being tested and researched
Whorf: the relationship between language and thought
Linguistic determinism: the medium is the message
• problem in assessing Whorf’s argument - danger of
inescapable circularity.
• languages differ → thought patterns also differ → the
language they use
• test the Sapir– Whorf hypothesis
• the Dani, a New Guinea tribe, use only two color terms
(dark and light), they could recognize and distinguish
between subtle shades of colors (e.g. pale blue vs.
turquoise).
><
• people remember colors that are coded in their language
more easily, and they tend to classify together colored
chips which are labeled as the “same” color by their
language
Whorf: the relationship between language and thought
Grammar and cognition
• grammaticalization process Something is
said to be grammaticalized or
grammaticized when it functions less and
less like an independent lexical item, and
more and more like an element in the
grammatical system, such as an affix or an
auxiliary verb.
4.4.2. Linguistic categories and culture
• Misconception: ”simple societies can’t have complex grammars”
• Aboriginal people of Australia
• mistakenly regarded as relatively simple. >< their culture is thousands of years old and very
complex
• their languages are amongst the most interesting and grammatically complex
• Kwakiutl, a Native American language - grammatical classification of nouns based on whether
they are visible or not.
• French requires every noun to be assigned to one of two genders or grammatical categories,
• Dyirbal has four such categories or classes.
• Lexico-semantic levels:
• Kunwinjku (Australian Aboriginal language) kangoroo terms
4.4.2. Linguistic categories and culture
• Maori kinship terminology
• relative age is very important
• The importance of the extended family
• indicate the mutual rights and obligations
• the lexical labels identify those with similar social rights
and obligations in relation to the speaker.
• (a) different terms are used for same-gender vs. different-
gender siblings - relative gender is important within the
family in Māori culture.
• different terms are used for younger vs. older siblings of
the same gender - relative age is important, especially
between same-gender siblings.
• (b) If you are female and she is younger, use teina.
• If you are female and she is older, use tuakana.
• If you are male, use tuahine.
4.4.2. Linguistic categories and culture
• linguistic terminology indexes important cultural
relationships
• kinship - encoded and the fineness of the distinctions
and their cultural significance differ dramatically from
one culture to another.
• In Njamal - distinct terms for younger vs. older
siblings and younger cousins
• lexical labels serve as indicators of the complex mutual
social rights and obligations of community members
4.4.2. Linguistic categories and culture
• (a) Category A inalienably possessed- always
possessed and cannot exist apart from the
possessor.
Category B - may be possessed or not.
implications for the grammar of the language.
• (b) The cultural significance of the distinction
becomes evident when we consider the concepts
and items that different cultural groups place in
different categories. So, for instance, land is
inalienably possessed for some peoples; and
clothes may be in category A for some groups
but not for others.
Video Source
[Link] The cost of language loss
• Ubykh (a Caucasian language)
• sounds not known in other languages;
• complex morphology
• Xixkaryana (a Cariban language in South America):
• unknown word order: OVS (Object- Verb-Subject)
• Implications to linguistic theory
• discovery forced descriptive and theoretical linguists – Reconsider:
• the range of formal constraints on human cognition
• the kinds of linguistic rules that the human brain can cope with.
[Link] The cost of language loss
• Languages encode information about the environment.
• subtle distinctions between plants on the basis of their medicinal properties, or which encodes
important biological and environmental knowledge →. information which may be very difficult
to retrieve
• Language loss - the loss of insights about human perception - semantic distinctions
• Tuyuca - grammar to indicate how much trust the listener should put in the information being
offered.
• some languages of the Amazon and New Guinea Highlands - grammars to specify the source of
their evidence
• Ngalakan, an Australian Aboriginal language- special “compassion” prefix attaches to the verb to
indicate the speaker’s sympathy
When people lose their language
their distinctive sociocultural identity is also put at risk.
4.4.3. Discourse patterns and culture
• When both groups apparently use the same language, culturally different
patterns of interaction can be a source of misunderstanding.
• Aboriginal society throughout Australia - great importance on indirectness
• giving people interactional privacy
• Factual information relating to location and time, and how people are
related to each other,
• using a statement with rising intonation - you were at the store? -
presents a proposition for confirmation or correction.
• less direct method with the information seeker volunteering
some of their own knowledge on the topic, and then waiting
patiently until the addressee is ready to respond - I heard there
was a big argument at the store yesterday
• Direct questions - inappropriate - likely to be responded to by silence or by a
formulaic response such as I don’t remember / I don’t know.
• non- Aboriginal norms dominate - often disadvantaged and misunderstood
or misinterpreted in interaction
4.4.3. Discourse patterns and culture
• Aboriginal interactions
• give personal relationships priority over
information- oriented goals
• prioritize the affective over the referential
dimension.
• Preferred discourse patterns and linguistic usages -
reflect and shape or construct a particular view of
social reality and sociocultural relationships.
4.4.4. Language, social class, and cognition
• Basil Bernstein (1961) concerned
• British children from working- class backgrounds were not progressing well at
school.
• working- class children spoke English differently from middle- class children\
• (mistakenly) assumed – language the working- class children used in a formal
interview with a middle- class adult - accurate representation of their
sociolinguistic competence →Restricted
4.4.4. Language, social class, and cognition
• Early claimed - restricted code - constrain the cognitive abilities no research support
• The language which children use might affect what they were capable of perceiving and even
their thinking abilities. ????????
• later rejected - developed a more socially sophisticated - took account of different
patterns of socialization.
• Early version had great appeal - placed the blame on the children and their
language rather than on the schools’ failure to adequately identify their
educational needs.
4.4.4. Language, social class, and cognition
• Bernstein (1961) - linguistic differences between classes in terms of his concept of codes
• (i) elaborated code: standard forms, complex sentences
• (ii) restricted code: short, grammatically simple sentences
• Claim: Every speaker has access to the restricted code, but not all social classes have access to the
elaborated code.
• Frequently misinterpreted
• Criticism:
• (i) falsely implies that the class system is maintained by code differences between people
• (ii) overlooks the importance of class conflict in linguistic differentiation
• (iii) The learning of the ‘elaborate code’ is portrayed as the ticket out of the working class;
solidarity is being ignored.
Discussion 13
• Give 2 examples where Vietnamese
culture-specific terms/vocabularies or
expressions don't have direct equivalents
in another language? (pronouns/
different food/ clothes terms)
• Analyze what the 2 examples reveal
about Vietnamese culture and cognition.
Class Discussion 13
1 2 3
Go to your class Complete Don’t forget to
Padlet include your
Discussion name and
• 12:30 -15:00 13 tasks student id.
• 15:10-17:40
Homework
Complete Class
Read Chapter 14
Discussion 13
THANK YOU