User:BlandK/languageandthought sandbox

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Link -- Partner Pages: User:Davmca97/sandbox User:BlandK/sandbox

Link -- Article Needs: User:BlandK/Language and Thought

Link -- Bibliography: User:BlandK/Language and Thought/Biblography

Link to Kaplan sources: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/women-talk-more-than-men/8532B2D22C70E5D3AEE4F9176AD29E7D

Group distribution
David:


 * Sections
 * Examples
 * fix language and cite sources

Kat:


 * Sections
 * Lead
 * Lingualism --> (change to "Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis" section and detail the spectrum of the hypothesis)
 * Scientific Hypotheses
 * most of these are not cited
 * the outline (main topics) came from source [3] in the references
 * this source is a meta-analysis source

Lingualism **Copied from original article**
* Lingualism is the belief that the absence of language is the absence of thought. Another belief which is tied to Lingualism is the idea that having language crucially sharpens cognitive abilities. Arguments for lingualism include, holism of the mental, or the concept of belief which requires language.* Ideas for edits:


 * delete this section? "lingualism" is not a thing
 * the belief that the absence of language is the absence of thought is literally just the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis???
 * create a section for the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has both a weak and a strong version. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, in its strongest version, claims that the structure of one's language--the grammar, the color distinction, the use of egotistic or cardinal directions, etc.--limits one's thoughts. Linguists typically reject the strong version as research has found limited empirical support and much of their research argues within the weak version of the hypothesis {Kaplan (2016)}.

linguists believe language (effects/affects??) thought but their research argues to what degree: for instance duestcher and mcwhorter



Lead *copied from article*
* A variety of different authors, theories and fields purport influences between language and thought.*

--The notion that language influences thought has a long history in various fields.--

* Psychologists attempt to explain the emergence of thought and language in human evolution.*

--(I don't think this sentence is necessary)--

* There are two bodies of thought forming around this debate. Lingualism, which claims that there is no thought without language[citation needed] and denies the intelligibility of any kind of thought whatsoever in the absence of language.[citation needed] And on the opposing side, there are 'language of thought' theories which believe that public language is inessential to private thought.* Note: this is not two separate bodies of thought. It is a spectrum of strong-weak of the same idea. Edit below: --There are two bodies of thought forming around this debate. One body of thought stems from linguistics and is known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. There is a strong and a weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The strong version argues that a lack of language means a lack of thought while the weak version supports the idea that there is some influences from language on thought. Linguists typically reject the strong version and much of their research argues within the weak version of the hypothesis.--

* And on the opposing side, there are 'language of thought' theories which believe that public language is inessential to private thought.*

--I don't like this but also don't have time to go through their source and pick it apart. Choosing to leave it.--

* The main use of language is to transfer thoughts from one mind, to another mind. The bits of linguistic information that enter into one person's mind, from another, cause people to entertain a new thought with profound effects on his world knowledge, inferencing, and subsequent behavior. Language neither creates nor distorts conceptual life. Thought comes first, while language is an expression. There are certain limitations among language, and humans cannot express all that they think. * Note: I think this last paragraph (^) should also be deleted. It's kind of irrelevant. It's a poorly constructed discription of language and thought. --If we want to include it, we should completely re-write this.--KAT Suggested final draft of LEAD:

The notion that language influences thought has a long history in a variety of fields. There are two bodies of thought forming around this debate. One body of thought stems from linguistics and is known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. There is a strong and a weak version of the hypothesis which argue for more or less influence of language on thought. The strong version, linguistic determinism, argues that without language there is and can be no thought while the weak version, linguistic relativity, supports the idea that there are some influences from language on thought. And on the opposing side, there are 'language of thought' theories (LOTH) which believe that public language, mentalese, is inessential to private thought. LOTH theories address the debate of whether thought is possible without language which is related to the question of whether language evolved for thought. These ideas are difficult to study because it proves challenging to parse the effects of culture versus thought versus language in all academic fields. David's Edits

Examples Section *Original*

Counting[edit]
Different cultures use numbers in different ways. The Munduruku culture for example, has number words only up to five. In addition, they refer to the number 5 as "a hand" and the number 10 as "two hands". Numbers above 10 are usually referred to as "many".

Perhaps the most different counting system from that of modern Western civilisation is the "one-two-many" system used by the Pirahã people. In this system, quantities larger than two are referred to simply as "many". In larger quantities, "one" can also mean a small amount and "many" a larger amount. Research was conducted in the Pirahã culture using various matching tasks. These are non-linguistic tasks that were analyzed to see if their counting system or more importantly their language affected their cognitive abilities. The results showed that they perform quite differently from, for example, an English speaking person who has a language with words for numbers more than two. For example, they were able to represent numbers 1 and 2 accurately using their fingers but as the quantities grew larger (up to 10), their accuracy diminished. This phenomenon is also called the "analog estimation", as numbers get bigger the estimation grows. Their declined performance is an example of how a language can affect thought and great evidence to support the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.

Orientation[edit]
Language also seems to shape how people from different cultures orient themselves in space. For instance, people from the Australian Aboriginal community Pormpuraaw define space relative to the observer. Instead of referring to location in terms like "left", "right", "back" and "forward", most Aboriginal Nations, such as the Kuuk Thaayorre, use cardinal-direction terms – north, south, east and west. For example, speakers from such cultures would say "There is a spider on your northeast leg" or "Pass the ball to the south southwest". In fact, instead of "hello", the greeting in such cultures is "Where are you going?" and sometimes even "Where are you coming from?" Such greeting would be followed by a directional answer "To the northeast in the middle distance". The consequence of using such language is that the speakers need to be constantly oriented in space, or they would not be able to express themselves properly, or even get past a greeting. Speakers of such languages that rely on absolute reference frames have a much greater navigational ability and spatial knowledge compared to speakers of languages that use relative reference frames (such as English). In comparison with English users, speakers of languages such as Kuuk Thaayorre are also much better at staying oriented even in unfamiliar spaces – and it is in fact their language that enables them to do this.

Color[edit]
See also: Linguistic relativity and the color naming debate

Language may influence color processing. Having more names for different colors, or different shades of colors, makes it easier both for children and for adults to recognize them. Research has found that all languages have names for black and white and that the colors defined by each language follow a certain pattern (i.e. a language with three colors also defines red, one with four defines green OR yellow, one with six defines blue, then brown, then other colors).

* Revised*

Counting[edit]

Different cultures communicate with numbers in different ways. The Munduruku culture for example, has number words only up to five. In addition, they refer to the number 5 as "a hand" and the number 10 as "two hands". Numbers above 10 are usually referred to as "many". (Citation for this example)

The Pirahã people use a “one-two-many” number system.. In this system, quantities larger than two are referred to as "many". In larger quantities, "one" can also mean a small amount and "many" a larger amount. Research was conducted in the Pirahã culture using various matching tasks. These are non-linguistic tasks that were analyzed to see if their counting system or their language affected their cognitive abilities. The results showed they were able to represent numbers 1 and 2 accurately using their fingers but as the quantities grew larger (up to 10), their accuracy diminished. This phenomenon is called the "analog estimation", as numbers get bigger the estimation grows. Their declined performance is an example of how a language can affect thought and evidence to support the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. (Add citations for stuff at the top of this paragraph)

Orientation[edit]

Language also seems to shape how people from different cultures orient themselves in space. For instance, people from the Australian Aboriginal community Pormpuraaw define space relative to the observer. Instead of referring to location in terms like "left", "right", "back" and "forward", most Aboriginal Nations, such as the Kuuk Thaayorre, use cardinal-direction terms – north, south, east and west. For example, speakers from such cultures would say "There is a spider on your northeast leg" or "Pass the ball to the south southwest". In fact, instead of "hello", the greeting in such cultures is "Where are you going?" and sometimes even "Where are you coming from?" Such greeting would be followed by a directional answer "To the northeast in the middle distance". The consequence of using such language is that the speakers need to be constantly oriented in space, or they would not be able to express themselves properly, or even get past a greeting. Speakers of such languages that rely on absolute reference frames have a much greater navigational ability and spatial knowledge compared to speakers of languages that use relative reference frames (such as English). In comparison with English users, speakers of languages such as Kuuk Thaayorre are also much better at staying oriented even in unfamiliar spaces – and it is in fact their language that enables them to do this.undefined (Add citation for the villagers)

Color[edit]

See also: Linguistic relativity and the color naming debate

Language influences color processing. Having more names for different colors, or different shades of colors, makes it easier both for children and for adults to recognize them. Research has found that all languages have names for black and white and that the colors defined by each language follow a certain pattern (i.e. a language with three colors also defines red, one with four defines green OR yellow, one with six defines blue, then brown, then other colors). undefined

Revisions: Changed the language (in bold) for a better worded wiki article.

Need to include citation for the middle paragraph, the citations for the other links are good.

Final Draft of Article
LEAD:

The notion that language influences thought has a long history in a variety of fields. There are two bodies of thought forming around this debate. One body of thought stems from linguistics and is known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. There is a strong and a weak version of the hypothesis which argue for more or less influence of language on thought. The strong version, linguistic determinism, argues that without language there is and can be no thought while the weak version, linguistic relativity, supports the idea that there are some influences from language on thought. And on the opposing side, there are 'language of thought' theories (LOTH) which believe that public language is inessential to private thought. LOTH theories address the debate of whether thought is possible without language which is related to the question of whether language evolved for thought. These ideas are difficult to study because it proves challenging to parse the effects of culture versus thought versus language in all academic fields.

The main use of language is to transfer thoughts from one mind, to another mind. The bits of linguistic information that enter into one person's mind, from another, cause people to entertain a new thought with profound effects on his world knowledge, inferencing, and subsequent behavior. Language neither creates nor distorts conceptual life. Thought comes first, while language is an expression. There are certain limitations among language, and humans cannot express all that they think.

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Linguistic Relativity

Linguistic Determinism

The links above detail the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Below are examples of studies conducted concerning the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as well as their results.

* INSERT DAVID's SECTION*

Language of thought

* copied from original*

Language of thought theories rely on the belief that mental representation has linguistic structure. Thoughts are "sentences in the head", meaning they take place within a mental language. Two theories work in support of the language of thought theory. Causal syntactic theory of mental practices hypothesizes that mental processes are causal processes defined over the syntax of mental representations. Representational theory of mind hypothesizes that propositional attitudes are relations between subjects and mental representations. In tandem, these theories explain how the brain can produce rational thought and behavior. All three of these theories were inspired by the development of modern logical inference. They were also inspired by Alan Turing's work on causal processes that require formal procedures within physical machines.

LOTH hinges on the belief that the mind works like a computer, always in computational processes. The theory believes that mental representation has both a combinatorial syntax and compositional semantics. The claim is that mental representations possess combinatorial syntax and compositional semantic—that is, mental representations are sentences in a mental language. Alan Turing's work on physical machines implementation of causal processes that require formal procedures was modeled after these beliefs.

* NEW content*

Another prominent linguist, Stephen Pinker, developed this idea of a mental languge in his book The Language Instinct (1994). Pinker refers to this mental language as mentalese. In the glossary of his book, Pinker defines mentalese as a hypothetical language used specifically for thought. This hypothetical language houses mental representations of concepts such as the meaning of words and sentences.

Kaplan, Abby (2016). Women Talk More than Men: … And Other Myths about Language Explained. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9781316027141.011. ISBN 978-1-316-02714-1.

Pinker, S. (2007). The Language Instinct (1994/2007). New York, NY: Harper Perennial Modern Classics.