Week 4

Question 1

Example of language –> language translation being complicated

Answer 1

Ten words for hole in Pintupi

Question 2

Sapir/Whorf Hypothesis (Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis

Answer 2

A form of linguistic determinism. language determines what we are capable of thinking about and how we think about it.

Question 3

Moderate Linguistic Relativity

Answer 3

language influences the ways in which we are accustomed to thinking about concepts and ideas, though it does not prevent an individual from thinking in a different way.

Question 4

Who is Whorf?

Answer 4

Whorf was an engineer who is most famous for his work with Hopi, the language of a southwestern Native American tribe of the same name.

Question 5

Who is Sapir?

Answer 5

Whorf worked with Sapir at Yale University.

They were interested in how people build conceptualizations of the word - how we construct reality.

Question 6

Sapir on linguistic relativity

Answer 6

“The fact of the matter is that the ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached”. (Sapir [1929] 1949b:162)

Question 7

Whorf on linguistic relativity

Answer 7

Whorf’s work with the Hopi language led him to believe that the Hopi did not and could not conceive of time in the way that English-speaking people do, and vice versa.

Question 8

Whorf on Hopi v English conceptions of time

Answer 8

The differences in the grammatical handling of time mean there are striking differences in how we think about it.
English speakers think in chunks of past, present, future.
Hopi speakers organize events as getting later and later but not divided on any scale

Question 9

Whorf’s definition of linguistic relativity

Answer 9

“Users of markedly different grammars are pointed by their grammars toward different types of observations and hence we are not equivalent as observers.”

Question 10

Strong version of linguistic relativity

Answer 10

language determines thought

Question 11

Weak version of linguistic relativity

Answer 11

Languages reflect what is culturally salient
Context plays an important role in decoding the meanings of linguistic signs (Kramsch, 1998)
Language mediates concepts

Question 12

Levinson and Wilkins on spatial cognition

Answer 12

‘Spatial cognition is a fundamental design requirement for every mobile species with a fixed territory or home base.’ (Levinson & Wilkins, 2006. p. 1)

Question 13

Important question

Answer 13

Does variability in spatial language reflect variability in spatial conceptualization?

Question 14

How do (all) humans conceptualize space?

Answer 14

Are there universals of spatial thinking?

Question 15

How do (all) humans speak about space?

Answer 15

Are there universals of spatial language?

Question 16

Which comes first, language or cognition?

Answer 16

If there are cultural divergences in spatial language, ‘language might not so much reflect underlying cognition as actually drive it’. (Levinson & Wilkins, 2006, p. 1)

Question 17

Figure

Answer 17

object [the referent] (e.g. book)

Question 18

Ground

Answer 18

whole complex of the landmark-object [the relatum] (e.g. table)
Your book is on the table
*The table is under your book

Question 19

Search-domain

Answer 19

the space anchored to the ground [relatum] in which referent is to be found

Question 20

Relation

Answer 20

between figure and ground

Question 21

Intrinsic space

Answer 21

Ground object is partitioned into named facets from which search domains are projected, e.g. the car is in front of the house

Question 22

Relative

Answer 22

Involves a mapping of the observer’s own axis onto the ground object, e.g. the ball is to the left of the tree

Question 23

Absolute

Answer 23

Mapping according to fixed bearings available to all community members, e.g. the door is to the north, the door is uphill (from Flinders Station)

Question 24

Social intellect

Answer 24

Hypothesis: that higher-order intelligence evolved because the most difficult problems facing higher primates are those involved in dealing with the social environment.

Question 25

Social intelligence

Answer 25

the ability to model other’s mental states, intentions, beliefs and points of view, in order to better predict their behaviour.

Question 26

Machiavellian intelligence

Answer 26

the ability to manipulate other’s beliefs about one’s mental states through deceptive outward behaviour, including such linguistic behaviours as lying.

Question 27

Why social cognition developed

Answer 27

Once language allowed us to organise things into classifications - such as the taxonomies that we were discussing the week before last - we can handle a hugely increased amount of information.
This represented a major advance in human cognition.

Question 28

The ability to classify things is a prerequisite of

Answer 28

social rules and social roles - such as kinship roles

Question 29

Social cognition – distinguishing between minds

Answer 29

The first key point here is that we can distinguish our own mental states from those of other’s. If we couldn’t tell what was our own thought and what was another’s, we’d be called delusional.
The ability to realise that other people don’t have the same mental states, the same thinking as our own, is crucial to the survival of our society.

Question 30

empathy

Answer 30

ability to guess at other’s mental states

Question 31

Skepticism

Answer 31

We need to exercise due scepticism about what we assume of other’s mental states.
We need to question whether we have correctly identified other mental states, and the intentions that we attribute to others.

Question 32

The ‘other minds’ problem

Answer 32

Do languages vary in the degree to which they allow speakers to represent, as known, aspects of the worlds represented in other minds? Does this correlate with other features of the culture?

Question 33

2 things in Other minds

Answer 33

Desires, ‘Private states’: e.g. want, loneliness,

Question 34

2 more things in Other minds

Answer 34

Intentionality and volitionality, Cognitive integration. How we expected something might happen & how we knew.

Question 35

One more thing in Other minds

Answer 35

Attention and background knowledge. What you’re paying attention to; what you know, don’t know, falsely believe. This is one of a number of factors that determine the choice between definite and indefinite articles in English.