Language and culture from a psychological perspective

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Language and culture from a psychological
perspective
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What is blue

• English speakers sky, blueberries, South Pacific
  Ocean
• Japanese speakers sky, blueberries, South
  Pacific Ocean, lawn, freshly shaven scalp, green
  traffic light.

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• Do people who speak different languages think
  about and experience the world differently?
• What do you think?

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• The horse and I were riding about
• Joint endeavor without expressed subject/object
  relationship
• I was riding a horse
• Active subject, passive object

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• Does this small bit of information provide a
  window into the psychological world of English
  speakers vs. Navajo
• Relationship with nature
• Active vs. passive rel. with environment

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Owambo greeting

• English
• Good morning, how are you?
• Fine
• Owambo
• Walelepo
• Eh
• Onawa?
• Eh.
• Oshili Nawa?
• Eh/ ahawe..blah, blah, blah

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• Respect for elders
• Mistrust/lying

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• 6912 living language in the world
• Ethnologue
• http//www.ethnologue.com/

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Linguistic relativity hypothesis

• Whorf Sapir
• Linguistic relativity hypothesis
• Strongest version states that we cant do much
  thinking without the relevant words available
• Researchers now believe that thinking is not
  entirely determined by the language we speak but
  rather HOW we talk about people, objects and
  event
• Different languages provide different ease at
  which to talk about these issues.

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Snowflake

• qanuk 'snowflake'
• qanir- 'to snow'
• qanunge- 'to snow' NUN
• qanugglir- 'to snow' NUN

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Frost, drifting snow, clinging particles

• kaneq 'frost'
• kaner- 'be frosty/frost sth.
• kanevvluk 'fine snow/rain particles
• kanevcir- to get fine snow/rain particles
• natquik 'drifting snow/etc'
• natqu(v)igte- 'for snow/etc. to drift along
  ground'nevluk 'clinging debris/
• nevlugte- 'have clinging debris/...'lint/snow/dirt
  ...'

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Fallen snow

• (6) Fallen snow on the groundaniu NS 'snow on
  ground'
• aniu- NS 'get snow on ground'
• apun NS 'snow on ground'
• qanikcaq 'snow on ground'
• qanikcir- 'get snow on ground'
• (7) Soft, deep fallen snow on the groundmuruaneq
  'soft deep snow'
• (8) Crust on fallen snowqetrar- NSU 'for snow
  to crust'
• qerretrar- NSU 'for snow to crust'
• (9) Fresh fallen snow on the groundnutaryuk
  'fresh snow' HBC
• (10) Fallen snow floating on waterqanisqineq
  'snow floating on water'

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Snow formations

• (11) Snow bankqengaruk 'snow bank' Y, HBC
• (12) Snow blockutvak 'snow carved in block'
• (13) Snow cornicenavcaq NSU 'snow cornice,
  snow (formation) about to collapse'
• navcite- 'get caught in an avalanche'

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Blizzard

• (14) Blizzard, snowstormpirta 'blizzard,
  snowstorm'
• pircir- 'to blizzard'
• pirtuk 'blizzard, snowstorm'
• (15) Severe blizzardcellallir-, cellarrlir- 'to
  snow heavily'
• pir(e)t(e)pag- 'to blizzard severely'
• pirrelvag- 'to blizzard severely'

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Kinship

• In many African languages, there is no word for
  aunt, uncle, cousin.
• Only brother, sister
• Common question after someone says,
• this is my brother is Same mother same father?

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What does Vygotsky think?
Cultural influence, mental processes, and
language are dynamic processes that occur
simultaneously talking to learn As children
verbally interact, then internalize language and
then use it to organize thought
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Noam Chomsky

• Language is hard wired. Grammer/lingistic
  structure, etc.
• At birth infants have the entire range of human
  language possibilities.
• Babbling across cultures shows remarkable
  similarity
• What happens then that matters

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What would you do

• Nga nga
• Tatetate
• Dadadad
• Mememem
• MAMAMAM
• Ieo ieo ieo
• Critical period for some phonemes is 10 months

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• Acknowledge and celebrate sounds in own language
• Sounds not in native language are dismissed as
  babbling and not enforced
• Infants and toddlers quickly learn a language

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Bilingualism

• Use to think these children were slow
• What is happening is they have more rewards to
  sift through when constructing language.

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Cross culturally

• Overall bias in infancy to use nouns
• No difference in the time they use nouns
• Use of verbs varies across cultures
• Year one in US
• Year 3 in Gusii

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Fig. 9.8
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Fig. 9.9