Psychology
Thinking and Language
Thinking and language are interconnected processes in the human mind. Thinking involves mental processes such as problem-solving, decision-making, and creativity, while language allows us to communicate our thoughts and ideas. The relationship between thinking and language is complex, with language influencing the way we think and vice versa.
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11 Key excerpts on "Thinking and Language"
eBook - PDF- Ronald Comer, Elizabeth Gould, Adrian Furnham(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
We often think using words, and we do not always share our thoughts with others. Similarly, some people write extensively for their own pleas- ure, never intending or wanting others to read their writ- ten words. Although the processes of language and thought overlap, a clear difference exists between them. In general, psychologists study these processes separately. Human thought is highly complex, varies from individual to individual and takes on many different forms. While much thought involves the use of words, some does not, instead relying on visual imagery or sounds. Consider, for example, what happens when a particular tune is stuck in one ’s head. Even if we cannot remember the lyrics, we can often imagine the music. The study of thought is a major component of cognitive psychology. As we saw in Chapter 1, the word cognition refers to a variety of mental processes that contribute to thinking and know- ing. Cognition is involved in learning and memory, as well as thinking. In this chapter, we will discuss a number of different types of think- ing that can involve accumulating knowledge, solving prob- lems, making decisions and even thinking about thinking. Language LEARNING OBJECTIVE 1 Define language, describe how we learn languages, describe parts of the brain that are involved in language and discuss dif- ferences and problems that can affect people’s language skills. Language is a set of symbols used to com- municate. These symbols can be spoken, signed or written. We use symbols, mainly words, to convey our thoughts and desires to others who share an understanding of the symbols. For instance, we communi- cate with you in this book using the symbols in the English written language. Language can be divided into two main com- ponents: language production and language comprehension. Language production occurs when we generate communicative vocalizations or gestures: that is, when we use the symbols in our shared language to communicate thoughts and ideas.
eBook - PDF- Nancy Ogden, Michael Boyes, Evelyn Field, Ronald Comer, Elizabeth Gould(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
Language evolved as a means for connecting socially and com- municating, and creativity is an inherent part of the adaptive power of language. Language and thought are characteristics that distinguish humans from other creatures. Language enables us to communicate in a precise and often creative way. We also use language to tell stories or jokes. Language has allowed us, as a species, to learn from past generations, originally by oral storytelling and then by written language. Language is a critical component of human behaviour because it greatly facilitates progressive social interactions. Consider the dif- ficulty involved in organizing a large group of people to build a city. Such a feat would be nearly impossible without the use of language. Although language is communicative, sometimes we use language only in our own heads. We often think using words, but many of our thoughts are not shared. Some people write exten- sively but only for themselves, never intending or wanting others to read their written words. Although the processes of language and thought overlap, a clear difference exists between them. In general, psychologists study these processes separately. Human thought is highly complex, varies from individual to individual, and takes on many different forms. The study of thought is a major component of cognitive psychology. As we saw in Chapter 1, the word cognition refers to a variety of mental processes that con- tribute to thinking and knowing. Cognition is involved in learning and memory, as well as in thinking. In this chapter, we will discuss a number of different types of thinking, which can involve accumulating knowledge, solving problems, making decisions, and even thinking about thinking. cognition mental processes of thinking and knowing.
eBook - PDF- Nick Lund(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
2 The relationship between language and thought Introduction The linguistic relativity hypothesis Thought determines language The interdependence of language and thought Summary Review exercise One feature that sets human communities apart from animal commu-nities is the use of language. Language is a vital part of every human culture and is a powerful social tool that we master at an early age. A second feature of humans is our ability to solve complex and/or abstract problems. Although some animals are capable of solving simple problems none are capable of solving the problems involved in something like space exploration or even in the designing of a psychology experiment. For centuries philosophers have questioned whether these two abilities are related and, if so, what the nature of the relationship between language and thought is. At the beginning of the last century psychologists joined this debate and it is a topic that is currently generating a lot of research. Another factor in the study of language and thought is the role of culture. When we study a language from another country we realise that it is not just the words and grammar that are different but the 9 Introduction customs and traditions as well. Even the ideas of that culture and the way of dealing with life can be different. If people speaking different languages have different customs and ideas it raises the following question: do different languages lead to different ways of thinking? Although there is some debate about the extent of language in thinking (see, for example, Carruthers, 1996), as adults much of our thinking seems to involve words and language. Furthermore, we cannot use language without thinking about what we want to say. Thus, in adults at least, language and thought seem closely entwined. There are four main views about the nature of this relationship between language and thought: 1. The language we speak determines or influences the way we think.
eBook - ePub- Judith Greene(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Taylor & Francis(Publisher)
5Thinking and Language: some problemsThe aim of this chapter is to bridge the gap between the first part of the book on thinking and the second part on language. It must have become increasingly obvious that to talk about thinking while ignoring language is an extremely lopsided affair. Verbal labels are not only of crucial importance in concept attainment experiments but are the chief medium of all types of thinking. Task instructions are couched in verbal form, hypotheses are expressed verbally and subjects’ talking aloud is considered to give at least some indication of their thought processes. Is it any wonder that the issue of whether language is necessary for thinking has proved an endlessly fascinating topic?The interaction between thought and language has been given its most illuminating analysis by the great Russian psychologist Vygotsky, whose book Thought and Language, first published in 1934, has been translated into English (1962). Vygostky’s view is that language has two distinct functions: external communication with one’s fellow human begins and, equally important, the internal manipulation of one’s inner thoughts. The miracle of human cognition is that both these systems use the same linguistic code and so can be translated – with more or less success – one into the other.That this is by no means necessary can be demonstrated by looking at animals. There is no doubt that animals can ‘think’ in the sense of solving complicted discrimination problems, even succeeding in learning oddity problems by picking out the odd stimulus out of three, a problem which presumably entails some quite complicated ‘inner representation’. Equally, there is no doubt that animals have extensive systems of communication: vocal cries, visual signals, smells, and so on. But what no animal has so far been able to do is to walk out of a psychological experiment and tell the next monkey in line, ‘There’s a mad professor in there who will give you a banana if you choose the odd one out.’ In other words, the monkey is not able to translate whatever processes he uses for internally representing a problem into a form that he can communicate externally. I say so far because of the remarkable recent work on teaching sign languages to chimpanzees which will be briefly described in section 5
eBook - PDFFor the Love of Language
An Introduction to Linguistics
- Kate Burridge, Tonya N. Stebbins(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
‘LANGUAGE IS THE DRESS OF THOUGHT’ LANGUAGE, MIND AND WORLD PART 6 Though the faculty of language may be congenital, all languages are traditional. The words in which we think are channels of thought which we have not dug ourselves, but which we found ready-made for us. Max Müller (1873), Lectures on Mr Darwin’s Philosophy of Language 16.0 INTRODUCTION This chapter opens with a reflection on the relationship between language and the mind. When learning a second language, it doesn’t take long for most people to notice that the world is not constructed in precisely the same way in all languages. How does language reflect our understanding of the world? Where do these differences come from? How do they relate to culture? What do they tell us about language and about its human users? Thinking about language and the mind focuses us on our experiences and behaviours as speakers of particular languages. But, the mind is elusive; we cannot answer some of our most basic questions about how language works with a focus on the mind alone. Shifting our focus to language and the brain allows for quite different sorts of questions. How is language stored in our brains? What thinking processes are involved in producing or understanding speech? How can we find out more about the way language is organised in our brains? These questions become especially compelling when we reflect that brain tissue has roughly the same consistency as cold porridge, is around 77 per cent water and corresponds to roughly 2 per cent of our total body weight. Furthermore, the structure of the brain and its relation to language is only now becoming clearer to researchers, as new technologies and methods make it possible to develop more and more detailed records of the brain activity associated with language.
eBook - ePub- Karen Littleton, Neil Mercer(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
It represents an important and distinctive strength of human cognition, whereby people can combine their intellectual resources to achieve more through working together than any individual could do on their own. This emergent affordance of the human brain, at least as much as its capacities for processing information, inferring the intentions of others and understanding complex social arrangements, is likely to have played a crucial role in the evolutionary survival of our ancestors. Language : Available evidence from neuroscience and psychological studies encourages the view that language is not a specific, modular capacity of the human brain but is fully integrated with cognition as a whole. Although other modes of communication and representation can have an important role in interthinking, language has a special role because it enables people to engage in reasoned dialogue. Other modes of communication cannot enable that, in any comparable sense. Moreover, experience of involvement in ways of using language for thinking collectively provide models for children on how to think alone. Intermental and intramental activity : Sociocultural theory proposes that there is a vital link between the development of children’s language skills, their involvement in the social interaction of everyday life (intermental activity) and the development of their individual cognition (intramental activity). The results of our own and other research, as described earlier in this chapter, not only support the existence of that link but suggest that it is even stronger than had previously been thought, with language playing a vital role in the development and maintenance of that link. Our own research highlights the connection between children being inducted into language genres that resemble Exploratory Talk and the development of their ability to reason. In brief, thinking collectively provides a template for thinking alone
eBook - PDF- Jennifer A. Vadeboncoeur(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
· 3 · WHAT IS THINKING ? Children learn and develop in social interactions with their caregivers and siblings, teachers and peers, and more distant significant others. Social prac- tices include these interactions and the speech patterns that accompany them. Almost everything we do and think and feel is mediated through words that play an increasing role over the course of development. Consider some of the everyday social practices that typically fill the day: talking with family, friends, and colleagues; reading news and weather reports, books, and blogs; and writing lists, letters, notes, and homework. We also calculate budgets and plan for purchases; listen to and play music; and communicate with indi- viduals and participate in communities using computers, tablets, and cell phones. Cultural tools—both technical and psychological tools—mediate experience; they are the means of mediation and they shape the way we do things. The process of mediation is central to all social practices; language, and more specifically, speech is the primary psychological tool. Psychological tools, systems of signs and symbols used for making meaning, play a central role in thinking. The first section of this chapter defines learning and development as medi- ated through cultural tools. The second section describes the primary psycho- logical tool, speech, and three different functions of speech—social, private, 66 vygotsky and the promise of public education and inner speech—along with the unity of speech and thinking in develop- ment. The third section describes the development of concepts, as well as the relationship between everyday concepts and academic concepts. The following questions are offered as a reader’s guide for the chapter.
eBook - PDF- Lena Heine(Author)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Inspired by the findings from cognitive psychology, there are, nonethe-less, alternative theories from the field of Cognitive Linguistics. They do not assume that linguistic processing is based on any special cognitive mechanism, but work according to the same basic underlying principles as other forms of cognition. What this theoretical debate shows is that it is not at all clear whether we should assume a clear structural distinction between linguistic and con-ceptual knowledge. We do not need to take any strict decision for or against one or the other view here; but the research from the cognitive Processes of text comprehension 37 sciences shows that it is possible to establish a distinction between linguis-tic and conceptual knowledge on a function level. In this light I have de-fined linguistic cognitive processes as mental processes that serve the con-struction and transfer of meaning with the help of the semiotic system of language. These cognitive processes are generally called ‘understanding and pro-ducing language’. They form the traditional areas of applied linguistics such as psycholinguistics, discourse analysis, and text composition re-search, which can look back onto a long tradition of empirical research (z.B. Aitchison 1998; Dietrich 2002; Garman 1991; Pinker 1995). In the following, I will present short overviews of those basic processes of under-standing and production of speech and written texts which have been mod-elled in these areas, and see whether they can be used here. 2. Processes of text comprehension Firstly, I will take a closer look at processes of language comprehension, which I will define as the human ability to extract information from the semiotic system of language by constructing a conceptual representation through linguistically coded symbols. The reception of language has been investigated mainly on the basis of written texts and only marginally on evidence from spoken language (but cf. Jusczyk 1997).
eBook - ePub- R. Peter Hobson(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
CHAPTER SEVEN Conceptual Issues II: On Thought and LanguageThis chapter is even more ambitious than the preceding ones. I want to consider the earliest developments in children’s thought and language. Once again, my approach will be to analyse what is involved in someone having thoughts and deriving concepts, and what lies behind the emergence of language. If we can set these matters in an appropriate frame of reference, we might stand a better chance of uncovering the foundations on which psychological development rests. It goes without saying that this is important for our understanding of early-rooted psychopathological states such as that of early childhood autism.I shall begin by considering the nature of thinking, and consider the contributions of perceiving, acting and feeling to early forms of abstraction. I shall then focus on the kind of abstraction particular to symbolic functioning, proceeding from a conceptual analysis of what symbolising entails to reflections on “I-It” and interpersonal contributions to a child’s developing capacity to symbolise. I shall move on to discuss certain features of interpersonal communication and language, and finally return to the business of thinking. My overall purpose is to bring out how the interpersonal dimension of early childhood experience is essential to the acquisition of certain higher cognitive capacities in the realms of creative symbolic functioning, language, and thinking.Perhaps I should draw attention to the fact that in this chapter I shall be directing attention to the young child’s own thought and language, and not primarily to the child’s understanding of other people’s thought and language. However, it will soon become clear that the development of the former has much to do with the development of the latter.
eBook - PDFIntroducing Linguistics
Theoretical and Applied Approaches
- Joyce Bruhn de Garavito, John W. Schwieter(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
To learn more about computational approaches to language, see Chapter 17 Computational Linguistics.. SUMMARY Psycholinguistics is the study of the cognitive processes and mental representations that are involved in language production, comprehension, and acquisition. In this chapter, we have discussed several theoretical models of speech production and comprehension. You have learned that both bottom-up and top-down processing are involved in language. 531 Exercises In sound processing, we use auditory information in the speech signal to process linguistic input. Motor theory states that we also use our knowledge of sound articulation and reading lips to comprehend speech. Two important models that explain sound processing and lexical access are the TRACE model and the cohort model. While the TRACE model argues that several levels of processing – feature level, phoneme level, word level – are all said to be active, the cohort model posits that a cohort of words with the same initial sound will be first analyzed followed by a process of elimination until one word is left as the correct target word. We focused much on the mental lexicon and lexical access in our conversation about word processing. The mental lexicon is the dictionary in your mind which contains word characteristics including their phonological, syntactic, and semantic properties. The search model explains how words from the mental lexicon are recognized. There are factors, however, that could affect this such as word frequency, ambiguity, how recently the word was last accessed, and its phonological neighborhood. When a speaker is temporarily unable to retrieve a word from the mental lexicon, we say that he/she is in a tip-of-the-tongue state. In sentence processing, parsing is the process of determining the grammaticality of words and phrases and assigning them into their appropriate grammatical category.
eBook - PDF- Douglas Bernstein, , , (Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
DILBERT: © Scott Adams/Dist. by United Feature Syndicate, Inc. Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Language 245 LANGUAGE How do babies learn to talk? Our language abilities are usually well integrated with our memory, thinking, and other cognitive abilities (Boroditsky & Gaby, 2010). This integration allows us to use language to express everything from simple requests to abstract principles. We can speak about our thoughts and memories, think about what people tell us, and interact with each other in meaningful ways (Majid et al., 2011). We can create stories that pass on cultural informa-tion and traditions from one generation to the next. In fact, as described in the chapter on biological aspects of psychology, our brains process language so effectively that it is only when strokes or other forms of damage interfere with the brain’s language areas that we are reminded that language is a very special kind of cognitive ability (Bedny et al., 2011; Kohnert, 2004; Stephens, Silbert, & Hasson, 2010). The Elements of Language A language has two basic elements: symbols, such as words, and rules, called grammar , for combining those symbols. With our knowledge of approximately 50,000 to 100,000 words (Miller, 1991), we humans can create and understand an infinite number of sentences. All of the sentences ever spoken are built from just a few dozen categories of sounds. The power of language comes from the way these rather unimpressive raw materials are organized according to certain rules.
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