Language and

Thought
Language Happy
holidays

 The most tangible

indication of our thinking appreciation
power
 Unique to humans
 Enables us to hello
communicate complex
ideas
 Enables us to retain and
transmit the collective Hebrew

knowledge of civilization
You are Amazing

 You probably know about 80,000 words.

 From 1 year old to the time you
graduated from high school, you learned
about 5000 words each year.
Features of Language by
Steven Pinker

1. Semanticity – sounds in human

language convey meaning (unlike
coughing or clearing our throats)
2. Arbitrariness – no inherent connection
between symbols in a language and
their meaning. The word “dog” has no
connection to an animal.
3. Flexibility of symbols – language
changes and grows. Cars used to be
called automobiles.
Features of Language by
Steven Pinker

1. Naming – we assign names to objects and

feelings. “I am word processing on my
personal computer.”
2. Displacement – language allows us to talk
about the past or the future as well as the
present.
3. Productivity (also called generativity) – we
generate sentences rather than repeat them.
This is how Chomsky critiqued Skinner’s
work.
Acquisition of Language

Babbling stage
Babies practice pronouncing sounds.
By around 10 months, it sounds like the native
language.
Acquisition of Language

One Word Stage

At about 1 year, the child uses one syllable words
to express something – “ma” “da” “ga”
Acquisition of Language
Two Word Stage
Around their second
birthday, children begin
to form two word
sentences
Telegraphic Speech –
mainly nouns and verbs
in a sensible order –
“nice doggy” “big boy”
“pretty baby” “need juice”
“no nap”
Explanation of Language
Development
 Skinner – association, imitation, reinforcement
 Chomsky – inborn universal grammar, brains
prewired, hardware and operating system
 Cognitive Scientists – we are able to quickly
statistically analyze aspects of human speech

The younger we learn a new language the better.

Thinking and Language

 Language Influences thinking – Lee

Whorf
 linguistic relativity hypothesis- different
languages impose different conceptions
of reality on us and shape our sense of
self.
Bilingual Education
 Is it beneficial?
 What does it do for
the brain?
 Should it be
mandatory for
children?
Thinking Without
Language
 Mental rehearsal
can boost your
performance in
athletics,
academics, and
social situations.
Animal Thinking and
Language
 Do animals think?
 They can solve
problems, count,
improvise the use of
implements to get to
food, recognize
themselves in a
mirror.
 Can apes talk?
So, can apes really talk?
 Language comes to
them with difficulty
 Can they transmit it
to each other?
 What about
“perceptual set?”
 What about their
cognitive powers?