Language and culture 1

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Language and culture (1)
Final report of term
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Working arrangement in our team

• ??? (Head of team)- Charge with assembling and
  contact with members
• ???-Search and collect information
• ???-Making Powerpoint and tape
• ???-assistant Collecting information
• ???-Arrange information
• ???-General services

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• Does the language we speak
• shape our thoughts?

By
??? 89110648 ??? 90110258 ??? 89110143 ???
93110122 ??? 89210069 ??? 91110984
June 26th 29th 2005
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Language of thought theories fall primarily into
two views.

• The first view sees the language of thought as
  an innate language, which is hypothesized to
  operate at a level below conscious awareness
  while at the same time operating at a higher
  level than the neural events in the brain.

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Language of thought theories fall primarily into
two views.

• The second view supposes that the language of
  thought is not innate.

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The language is innate theory - languages
determine the thoughts

• Steven Pinker-thinking must be done in
  mentalese. http//www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Pape
  rs/Py104/pinker.langacq.html
• Sapir
• Benjanin Whorf http//venus.va.com.au/suggestion/
  sapir.html

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The language isnt innate theory -

• Jerry Fodor-
• The language of thought hypothesis claims
• That when a person has a thought such as
• the thought grass is green', the content of
• that thought is represented in that person's
• mind by a sentence.

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The language isnt innate theory -

• Jerry Fodor-
• One thing is certain -- the brain
• must contain, or at least instantiate
• a symbol system.
• http//www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/represe
  ntation/papers/FodorOnBermudez.pdf

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The language isnt innate theory -

• Piaget http//www.coursework.info/i/24401.html
• Chomosky

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Our goal is to defend the second view-That
language isnt innate and cant shape our
thoughts.
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The reasons-

• First, the theory of human thinking requires a
  language of thought has some problems.
• Second stage of the project will focus on
  evidence to support the claim that natural
  language is the language of thought.

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The problem with Mentalese

• They cannot be discovered through introspection
  because mentalese is a 'behind the scenes'
  language of thought. So, we cannot look for
  mentalese through introspection.
  http//www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/njp0001.html

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To prove language cant shape our thoughts

• Helen Keller, who could neither hear not speak.
• Aphasia patients

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To prove language cant shape our thoughts

• The Computer, which was so named by a human.
• Infants and non-human animals, when they need
  by crying and deeds.

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Conclusion

• Rene Descartes
• I think, therefore I am.
• William Shakespeare
• Whats in a name? That which we call
• a rose by any other name would smell as
  sweet.

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Reference documents

• Revealing the Language of Thought (An e-book) by
  Brent Silby
• http//www.geocities.com/brent_silby/RevealLan
  guageOfThought.html

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The reflection of each member in our team

• ??? 89110648 http//www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/
  2004/07.22/21-think.html
• ??? 90110258
• ??? 89110143 http//plato.stanford.edu/entries/la
  nguage-thought/

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The reflection of each member in our team

• ??? 93110122
• http//www.lsadc.org/fields/index.php?aaa
  lang_thought.htm
• ??? 89210069
• ??? 91110984 http//movie.kingnet.com.tw/channelk
  /silence/index.html

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The End

• Thank you for your time to view.