Relations of Language and Thought

Relations of Language and Thought PDF

Author: Marc Marschark

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1997-08-14

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 0195356543

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The relationship of language to cognition, especially in development, is an issue that has occupied philosophers, psychologists, and linguists for centuries. In recent years, the scientific study of sign languages and deaf individuals has greatly enhanced our understanding of deafness, language, and cognition. This Counterpoints volume considers the extent to which the use of sign language might affect the course and character of cognitive development, and presents a variety of viewpoints in this debate. This volume brings the language-thought discussion into a clearer focus, both theoretically and practically, by placing it in the context of children growing up deaf and the influences of having sign language as their primary form of communication. The discussion is also sharpened by having internationally recognized contributors, such as Patricia Siple, Diane Lillo-Martin, and Ruth Campbell, with specialties in varied areas, all converging on a common interest in which each has conducted empirical research. These contributors clarify and challenge the theoretical assumptions that have driven arguments in the language-thought debate for centuries. An introduction by the editors provides a historical overview of the issues as well as a review of empirical findings that have been offered in response to questions about language-thought relations in deaf children. The final chapters are structured in the form of "live" debate, in which each contributor is given the opportunity to respond to the other perspectives presented in this volume.

The Cambridge Handbook of Psycholinguistics

The Cambridge Handbook of Psycholinguistics PDF

Author: Michael Spivey

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-08-20

Total Pages: 1297

ISBN-13: 1139536141

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Our ability to speak, write, understand speech and read is critical to our ability to function in today's society. As such, psycholinguistics, or the study of how humans learn and use language, is a central topic in cognitive science. This comprehensive handbook is a collection of chapters written not by practitioners in the field, who can summarize the work going on around them, but by trailblazers from a wide array of subfields, who have been shaping the field of psycholinguistics over the last decade. Some topics discussed include how children learn language, how average adults understand and produce language, how language is represented in the brain, how brain-damaged individuals perform in terms of their language abilities and computer-based models of language and meaning. This is required reading for advanced researchers, graduate students and upper-level undergraduates who are interested in the recent developments and the future of psycholinguistics.

Language and Thought

Language and Thought PDF

Author: Nick Lund

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-04-04

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 1134457138

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This book fulfils the need for a clear overview of this area of cognitive psychology which encompasses both language and thought. Focusing on goal directed thinking and decision making, Nick Lund looks at the relationship between our grasp of language and our problem solving abilities. Different positions on the issues are contextualised and discussed in a way suitable for the AQA-A A-Level syllabus. Supplementary detail means that the book will also be valuable to other A-Level specification candidates and undergraduates coming to this area for the first time.

Don't Sleep, There are Snakes

Don't Sleep, There are Snakes PDF

Author: Daniel Everett

Publisher: Profile Books

Published: 2010-07-09

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 1847651224

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Although Daniel Everett was a missionary, far from converting the Pirahãs, they converted him. He shows the slow, meticulous steps by which he gradually mastered their language and his gradual realisation that its unusual nature closely reflected its speakers' startlingly original perceptions of the world. Everett describes how he began to realise that his discoveries about the Pirahã language opened up a new way of understanding how language works in our minds and in our lives, and that this way was utterly at odds with Noam Chomsky's universally accepted linguistic theories. The perils of passionate academic opposition were then swiftly conjoined to those of the Amazon in a debate whose outcome has yet to be won. Everett's views are most recently discussed in Tom Wolfe's bestselling The Kingdom of Speech. Adventure, personal enlightenment and the makings of a scientific revolution proceed together in this vivid, funny and moving book.

Psychology of Language and Thought

Psychology of Language and Thought PDF

Author: Robert W. Rieber

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-11-11

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 1468436449

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The fact that one would contemplate publication of a book such as this indicates both the maturity and the growth of activity that have taken place in the field of psycholinguistics over the past few decades. More over, the fact that psycholinguists and/or scholars of the history of ideas are interested in the history of their subject clearly demonstrates that much has been accomplished, and the time is indeed ripe for the reassess ment of whence we have come. In addition, perhaps this interest in our historical past suggests that psycholinguistics is at a critical stage in its development. There are many scholars who believe that this critical stage manifests itself primarily in a search for a new paradigm. It would seem only reasonable to suggest that when members of a profession are search ing for something new, more than likely they will take time to reflect on the past in the hope that it will facilitate the fulfillment of their quest. This book as such reflects a wide-ranging search for historical roots over a millenium of research in the psychology of language and thought. Furthermore, it also reflects an attempt to open the context by introducing the broader perspectives of the history of ideas and the history of science together with their reassessment of the method of science motivated from within psychology itself.

A User's Guide to Thought and Meaning

A User's Guide to Thought and Meaning PDF

Author: Ray Jackendoff

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2012-02-23

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 0191620688

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A User's Guide to Thought and Meaning presents a profound and arresting integration of the faculties of the mind - of how we think, speak, and see the world. Ray Jackendoff starts out by looking at languages and what the meanings of words and sentences actually do. He shows that meanings are more adaptive and complicated than they're commonly given credit for, and he is led to some basic questions: How do we perceive and act in the world? How do we talk about it? And how can the collection of neurons in the brain give rise to conscious experience? As it turns out, the organization of language, thought, and perception does not look much like the way we experience things, and only a small part of what the brain does is conscious. Jackendoff concludes that thought and meaning must be almost completely unconscious. What we experience as rational conscious thought - which we prize as setting us apart from the animals - in fact rides on a foundation of unconscious intuition. Rationality amounts to intuition enhanced by language. Written with an informality that belies both the originality of its insights and the radical nature of its conclusions, A User's Guide to Thought and Meaning is the author's most important book since the groundbreaking Foundations of Language in 2002.

Thought and Language

Thought and Language PDF

Author: Lev Semenovich Vygotskiĭ

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 1986

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 9780262720106

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Since it was introduced to the English-speaking world in 1962, Lev Vygotsky's highly original exploration of human mental development has become recognized as a classic foundational work of cognitive science. Vygotsky analyzes the relationship between words and consciousness, arguing that speech is social in its origins and that only as children develop does it become internalized verbal thought. Now Alex Kozulin has created a new edition of the original MIT Press translation by Eugenia Hanfmann and Gertrude Vakar that restores the work's complete text and adds materials that will help readers better understand Vygotsky's meaning and intentions. Kozulin has also contributed an introductory essay that offers new insight into the author's life, intellectual milieu, and research methods. Lev S. Vygotsky (1896-1934) studied at Moscow University and acquired in his brief lifespan a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of the social sciences, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, literature, and the arts. He began his systematic work in psychology at the age of 28, and within a few years formulated his theory of the development of specifically human higher mental functions. He died of tuberculosis ten years later, and Thought and Languagewas published posthumously in 1934. Alex Kozulin studied at the Moscow Institute of Medicine and the Moscow Institute of Psychology, where he began his investigation of Vygotsky and the history of Soviet psychology. He emigrated in 1979 and is now Associate Professor of Psychiatry (Psychology) at Boston University. He is the author of Psychology in Utopia: Toward a Social History of Soviet Psychology(MIT Press 1984).

The Language of Thought

The Language of Thought PDF

Author: Jerry A. Fodor

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1975

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9780674510302

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In a compelling defense of the speculative approach to the philosophy of mind, Jerry Fodor argues that, while our best current theories of cognitive psychology view many higher processes as computational, computation itself presupposes an internal medium of representation. Fodor's prime concerns are to buttress the notion of internal representation from a philosophical viewpoint, and to determine those characteristics of this conceptual construct using the empirical data available from linguistics and cognitive psychology.

Language and Thought

Language and Thought PDF

Author: Noam Chomsky

Publisher:

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 104

ISBN-13:

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A fascinating analysis of human language and its influence on other disciplines by one of the nation's most respected linguists. Chomsky is also the author of What Uncle Sam Really Wants and The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many (15,000 copies sold).

Through the Language Glass

Through the Language Glass PDF

Author: Guy Deutscher

Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Published: 2010-08-31

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 1429970111

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A masterpiece of linguistics scholarship, at once erudite and entertaining, confronts the thorny question of how—and whether—culture shapes language and language, culture Linguistics has long shied away from claiming any link between a language and the culture of its speakers: too much simplistic (even bigoted) chatter about the romance of Italian and the goose-stepping orderliness of German has made serious thinkers wary of the entire subject. But now, acclaimed linguist Guy Deutscher has dared to reopen the issue. Can culture influence language—and vice versa? Can different languages lead their speakers to different thoughts? Could our experience of the world depend on whether our language has a word for "blue"? Challenging the consensus that the fundaments of language are hard-wired in our genes and thus universal, Deutscher argues that the answer to all these questions is—yes. In thrilling fashion, he takes us from Homer to Darwin, from Yale to the Amazon, from how to name the rainbow to why Russian water—a "she"—becomes a "he" once you dip a tea bag into her, demonstrating that language does in fact reflect culture in ways that are anything but trivial. Audacious, delightful, and field-changing, Through the Language Glass is a classic of intellectual discovery.