New Perspectives on Language and Thought
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Concepts and Compositionality: in Search of the Brain's Language Of
PS71CH11_Greene ARjats.cls November 27, 2019 15:55 Annual Review of Psychology Concepts and Compositionality: In Search of the Brain’s Language of Thought Steven M. Frankland1 and Joshua D. Greene2 1Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA; email: [email protected] 2Department of Psychology and Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA; email: [email protected] Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2020. 71:273–303 Keywords First published as a Review in Advance on compositionality, conceptual combination, language of thought, default September 24, 2019 mode network, grid cells, artificial intelligence The Annual Review of Psychology is online at psych.annualreviews.org Abstract https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-122216- Imagine Genghis Khan, Aretha Franklin, and the Cleveland Cavaliers per- 011829 forming an opera on Maui. This silly sentence makes a serious point: As Access provided by Harvard University on 01/08/20. For personal use only. Copyright © 2020 by Annual Reviews. humans, we can flexibly generate and comprehend an unbounded num- Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2020.71:273-303. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org All rights reserved ber of complex ideas. Little is known, however, about how our brains ac- complish this. Here we assemble clues from disparate areas of cognitive neuroscience, integrating recent research on language, memory, episodic simulation, and computational models of high-level cognition. Our review is framed by Fodor’s classic language of thought hypothesis, according to which our minds employ an amodal, language-like system for combining and recombining simple concepts to form more complex thoughts. Here, we highlight emerging work on combinatorial processes in the brain and con- sider this work’s relation to the language of thought. -
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The Evolution of Language: Towards Gestural Hypotheses DIS/CONTINUITIES TORUŃ STUDIES IN LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND CULTURE Edited by Mirosława Buchholtz Advisory Board Leszek Berezowski (Wrocław University) Annick Duperray (University of Provence) Dorota Guttfeld (Nicolaus Copernicus University) Grzegorz Koneczniak (Nicolaus Copernicus University) Piotr Skrzypczak (Nicolaus Copernicus University) Jordan Zlatev (Lund University) Vol. 20 DIS/CONTINUITIES Przemysław ywiczy ski / Sławomir Wacewicz TORUŃ STUDIES IN LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND CULTURE Ż ń Edited by Mirosława Buchholtz Advisory Board Leszek Berezowski (Wrocław University) Annick Duperray (University of Provence) Dorota Guttfeld (Nicolaus Copernicus University) Grzegorz Koneczniak (Nicolaus Copernicus University) The Evolution of Language: Piotr Skrzypczak (Nicolaus Copernicus University) Jordan Zlatev (Lund University) Towards Gestural Hypotheses Vol. 20 Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. The translation, publication and editing of this book was financed by a grant from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland within the programme Uniwersalia 2.1 (ID: 347247, Reg. no. 21H 16 0049 84) as a part of the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Ministry cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. Translators: Marek Placi ski, Monika Boruta Supervision and proofreading: John Kearns Cover illustration: © ńMateusz Pawlik Printed by CPI books GmbH, Leck ISSN 2193-4207 ISBN 978-3-631-79022-9 (Print) E-ISBN 978-3-631-79393-0 (E-PDF) E-ISBN 978-3-631-79394-7 (EPUB) E-ISBN 978-3-631-79395-4 (MOBI) DOI 10.3726/b15805 Open Access: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 unported license. -
Preservice Teachers' Reflections on Language Diversity
Preservice teachers’ reflections on language diversity Toril Rangnes, Andrea Synnøve Blomsø Eikset To cite this version: Toril Rangnes, Andrea Synnøve Blomsø Eikset. Preservice teachers’ reflections on language diver- sity. Eleventh Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education, Utrecht University, Feb 2019, Utrecht, Netherlands. hal-02435368 HAL Id: hal-02435368 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02435368 Submitted on 10 Jan 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Preservice teachers’ reflections on language diversity Toril Eskeland Rangnes and Andrea Synnøve Blomsø Eikset Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Education, Arts and Sports, Norway; [email protected] and [email protected] In this paper, we investigate how preservice teachers (PTs) express their awareness about language diversity in mathematics classrooms. We use “language as resource” and “language as a problem” as theoretical constructs. The data is taken from PTs´ group assignments, including transcriptions of dialogues between the PTs and multilingual students, and from PTs´ written reflections about teaching in multilingual classrooms. We found that in the dialogues, PTs and multilingual students produced meanings together through negotiating a shared repertoire from out-of-school and in-school mathematics context. -
Penguins Can't Fly and Women Don't Count: Language and Thought Janet M
Old Dominion University ODU Digital Commons English Faculty Publications English 6-1992 Penguins Can't Fly and Women Don't Count: Language and Thought Janet M. Bing Old Dominion University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/english_fac_pubs Part of the Anthropological Linguistics and Sociolinguistics Commons, and the Gender and Sexuality Commons Repository Citation Bing, Janet M., "Penguins Can't Fly and Women Don't Count: Language and Thought" (1992). English Faculty Publications. 9. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/english_fac_pubs/9 Original Publication Citation Bing, Janet. "Penguins Can't Fly and Women Don't Count: Language and Thought." Women and Language 15.2 (1992): 11-14. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English at ODU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ODU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Bing, Janet. Penguins can't fly and women don't count: Language and thought Women and Language . Vol. 15 (Fall 1992), 2; pg. 11-14. © George Mason University, Communication Department Fall 1992 Many people object to sexist and racist language partly because they assume that language not only reflects, but somehow affects attitudes. A one-to-one relationship between language and thought seems obvious to those who never question it, but the issue of whether language influences thought and behavior has been a matter of debate in philosophy even before Berkeley and Wittgenstein. Literary critics, particularly those who call themselves deconstructionists, are still debating to what extent language constructs reality. -
Language As Political Control: Newspeak Revisited
Language as Political Control: Newspeak Revisited Jonathan Pool Department of Political Science University of Washington Seattle, Washington 98195 Bernard Grofman School of Social Sciences University of California, Irvine Irvine, California 92717 Prepared for delivery at the 1984 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Ass ociation, Washington, D. C., 30 August to 2 September, 1984. Copyright by the American Political Science Association. Pool & Grofman i Language as Political Control ABSTRACT Could a state make its citizens speak and write a language like Newspeak, described by Orwell in 1984? Would the use of su ch a language suppress the population's ability to-reason about politics? Newspeak is a language created by grafting the morphology of Esperanto onto the sy ntax, semantics, and style of bureaucratic English. The derivation and inflection of words are very regular, simple, and productive; words are etymo logically disassociated and easy to pronounce; meanings are controlled; synonyms are eliminated; and cliches and monotonous speech are legitimized. The evidence largely supports the belief that a language like Newspeak could be successfully ad opted for or by a speech community. Communities have accepted such language reforms with little coercion when proposed by states, voluntary associations, and individuals. Preliminary evidence does not, however, support the belief that a language like Newspeak would impair the capacity for political reasoning. Persons using a language with features of Newspeak maintain their ability to resist verbal manipulation. When such a language is officialized, it also reduces ethnic and elite-mass linguistic gaps. In important ways, Newspeak represents a new linguistic technology of political equality and liberation. -
Decoding Chomsky
European Review, Vol. 12, No. 4, 581–603 (2004) © Academia Europaea, Printed in the United Kingdom Decoding Chomsky CHRIS KNIGHT School of Social Sciences, University of East London, Docklands Campus, London E16 2RD, UK. E-mail: [email protected] Noam Chomsky is an enigma. To many, he is – and has been for 50 years – the most prominent and courageous academic opponent of his country’s militarist ambitions around the globe. Yet among those who admire him on that score, few find it easy to relate to his seemingly obscure theories about language. The academic community acclaims Chomsky as the principal inspiration behind the so-called ‘cognitive revolution’ in psychology and related sciences – an intellectual development reflecting corporate pressures and initially sponsored by the United States military. This article investigates the paradoxical relationship between Chomsky’s political activism and his science. Introduction Noam Chomsky ranks among the leading intellectual figures of modern times. He has changed the way we think about what it means to be human, gaining a position in the history of ideas – at least according to his supporters – comparable with that of Galileo or Descartes. Since launching his intellectual assault against the academic orthodoxies of the 1950s, he has succeeded – almost single-handedly – in revolutionizing linguistics and establishing it as a modern science. Such victories, however, have come at a cost. The stage was set for the ensuing ‘Linguistics Wars’1 when, as a young anarchist, Chomsky published his first book. He might as well have thrown a bomb. ‘The extraordinary and traumatic impact of the publication of Syntactic Structures by Noam Chomsky in 1957’, recalls one witness,2 ‘can hardly be appreciated by one who did not live through this upheaval’. -
The Chomsky Enigma
Weekly Worker 655 - Thursday January 4 2007 18/08/2010 11:07 Weekly Worker 655 Thursday January 11 2007 Subscribe to the Weekly Worker 18:08:201004:05:2009 The Chomsky home contact enigma action weekly worker respect the unity coalition How is that a powerful critic of US imperialism european social forum has been regarded as a valued asset by the US theory military? In the first of three articles Chris Knight resources of the Radical Anthropology Group begins his what we fight for examination of the life and work of Noam programme Chomsky join Noam Chomsky ranks among the leading intellectual search figures of modern times. He has changed the way we Fighting fund think about what it means to be human, gaining a communist university position in the history of ideas - at least according to On the links his supporters - comparable with that of Galileo, Descartes or Newton. Since launching his intellectual our history assault against the academic orthodoxies of the move 1950s, he has succeeded - almost single-handedly - in revolutionising linguistics and establishing it as a modern science. Our January fund has received an early boost with a handsome Such intellectual victories, however, have come at a £100 donation from comrade GD. cost. The stage was set for the “linguistics wars”1 Which is very handy, as when Chomsky published his first book. He might as circumstances have conspired to well have thrown a bomb. “The extraordinary and force us to change premises - an traumatic impact of the publication of Syntactic expensive business, as readers structures by Noam Chomsky in 1957,” recalls one will know. -
Maps, Languages, and Manguages: Rival Cognitive Architectures?
Philosophical Psychology, 2015 Vol. 28, No. 6, 815–836, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2014.893814 Maps, languages, and manguages: Rival cognitive architectures? Kent Johnson Provided we agree about the thing, it is needless to dispute about the terms. —David Hume, A treatise of human nature, Book 1, section VII Map-like representations are frequently invoked as an alternative type of representational vehicle to a language of thought. This view presupposes that map-systems and languages form legitimate natural kinds of cognitive representational systems. I argue that they do not, because the collections of features that might be taken as characteristic of maps or languages do not themselves provide scientifically useful information above and beyond what the individual features provide. To bring this out, I sketch several allegedly distinctive features of maps, and show how they can easily be grafted onto a simple logical language, resulting in a hybrid “manguage.” The ease with which these linguistic and map-like properties can be integrated into a single representational system raises the question of what work broader categories like language and map are doing. I maintain that, as an empirical matter of fact, they serve no particular purpose in cognitive science, and thus do not characterize distinct kinds of cognitive architectures. Keywords: Cognitive Architecture; Language; Map 1. Introduction An enduring issue in the philosophy of mind, at least since the publication of The language of thought (Fodor, 1975) concerns the vehicle of thought. Are thoughts sentential entities, or does cognitive activity occur in some nonlinguistic format? Over the years, numerous alternatives to the language of thought view (LoT) have been developed. -
Dystopian Language and Thought: the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Applied to Created Forms of English
DePauw University Scholarly and Creative Work from DePauw University Student research Student Work 2014 Dystopian Language and Thought: The aS pir- Whorf Hypothesis Applied to Created Forms of English Kristen Fairchild Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.depauw.edu/studentresearch Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Fairchild, Kristen, "Dystopian Language and Thought: The aS pir-Whorf Hypothesis Applied to Created Forms of English" (2014). Student research. Paper 7. This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at Scholarly and Creative Work from DePauw University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Student research by an authorized administrator of Scholarly and Creative Work from DePauw University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1 Dystopian Language and Thought: The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Applied to Created Forms of English Kristen Fairchild DePauw University Honor Scholar 401-402: Senior Thesis April 11, 2014 2 3 Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge and thank my three committee members for their guidance and encouragement through this process. Additionally, a special thanks to my advisor, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Ph.D, for all his extra time and support. 4 5 Introduction The genre of science fiction is a haven for the creation of new worlds, universes, and projections of the future. Many versions of the future represent dystopian societies. While the word dystopia often evokes images of hellish landscapes or militarized super-cities, the word dystopia simply implies “a dis-placement of our reality.”1 Dystopias usually originate from social or political conditions of the present. -
New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind Noam Chomsky Frontmatter More Information
Cambridge University Press 0521651476 - New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind Noam Chomsky Frontmatter More information New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind This book is an outstanding contribution to the philosophical study of language and mind, by one of the most influential thinkers of our time. In a series of penetrating essays, Noam Chomsky cuts through the confusion and prejudice which has infected the study of language and mind, bringing new solutions to traditional philosophical puzzles and fresh perspectives on issues of general interest, ranging from the mind–body problem to the unification of science. Using a range of imaginative and deceptively simple linguistic ana- lyses, Chomsky argues that there is no coherent notion of “language” external to the human mind, and that the study of language should take as its focus the mental construct which constitutes our knowledge of language. Human language is therefore a psychological, ultimately a “biological object,” and should be analysed using the methodology of the natural sciences. His examples and analyses come together in this book to give a unique and compelling perspective on language and the mind. is Institute Professor at the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Chomsky has written and lectured extensively on a wide range of topics, including linguistics, philosophy, and intellectual history. His main works on linguistics include: Syntactic Structures; Current Issues in Linguistic Theory; Aspects of the Theory of Syntax; Cartesian Linguistics; Sound Pattern of English (with Morris Halle); Language and Mind; Reflections on Language; The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory; Lec- tures on Government and Binding; Modular Approaches to the Study of the Mind; Knowledge of Language: its Nature, Origins and Use; Language and Problems of Knowledge; Generative Grammar: its Basis, Development and Prospects; Language in a Psychological Setting; Language and Prob- lems of Knowledge; and The Minimalist Program. -
CHOMSKY, Noam Avram (1928- ) Forthcoming in the Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers, 1860-1960 Ed., Ernest Lepore, Thoemmes Press, 2004
CHOMSKY, Noam Avram (1928- ) Forthcoming in the Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers, 1860-1960 ed., Ernest LePore, Thoemmes Press, 2004. Noam Chomsky was born to Dr. William (Zev) Chomsky and Elsie Simonofsky in Philadelphia on December 7, 1928. His father emigrated to the United States from Russia. William was an eminent scholar, author of the study Hebrew, the Eternal Language (1957), as well as numerous other works on the history and teaching of Hebrew. Noam entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1945. There he came in contact with Zelig Harris, a prominent linguist and the founder of the first linguistics department in the United States (at the University of Pennsylvania). In 1947 Chomsky decided to major in linguistics, and in 1949 he began his graduate studies in that field. His BA honor’s thesis Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew (1949, revised as an MA thesis in 1951) contains several ideas that foreshadow Chomsky’s later work in generative grammar. In 1949 he married the linguist Carol Schatz. During the years 1951 to 1955 Chomsky was a Junior Fellow of the Harvard University Society of Fellows, where he completed his PhD dissertation entitled Transformational Analysis (1955; published as part of The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory in 1975). Chomsky received a faculty position at MIT in 1955 and he has been teaching there ever since. In 1961 he was appointed full professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics; the graduate program in linguistics began the same year. In 1966 he was appointed Ferrari Ward Professor of Linguistics. In 1976, the linguistics and philosophy programs at MIT were merged and the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy was created; this has been Chomsky’s home department ever since. -
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Today
ISSN 1799-2591 Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 642-646, March 2012 © 2012 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland. doi:10.4304/tpls.2.3.642-646 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Today Basel Al-Sheikh Hussein Department of English Language and Literature, Al-Zaytoonah Private University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan Email: [email protected] Abstract—The Sapir-Whorf's Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis provokes intellectual discussion about the strong impact language has on our perception of the world around us. This paper intends to enliven the still open questions raised by this hypothesis. This is done by considering some of Sapir’s, Whorf’s, and other scholar’s works. Index Terms—perception, language, thought. I. INTRODUCTION Needless to say that the “Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis”, well-known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, has been the subject of controversy ever since it was first formulated. Its originator was the American anthologist and linguist E.Sapir. He clearly expresses the principle of this hypothesis in his essay “The Status of Linguistics as a science “(cf. Sapir, selected Essays, 1961). B.L. Whorf reformulated the hypothesis in his 1940 published essay “Science and Linguistics” (cf. Whorf, Selected Writings, 1956). The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis proclaimed the influence of language on thought and perception. This, in turn, implies that the speakers of different languages think and perceive reality in different ways and that each language has its own world view. The issues this hypothesis raised not only pertain to the field of linguistics but also had a bearing on Psychology, Ethnology, Anthropology, Sociology, Philosophy, as well as on the natural sciences.