Language Meets Culture Termpaper_SoSe10

7/30/2019 Language Meets Culture Termpaper_SoSe10

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Humboldt-Universitt zu Berlin

Sommersemester 2010

Institut fr Anglistik/Amerikanistik

BA-Modul 9: English Language in Social and Cultural Context

Dozent/in:

Dr. phil. Holden Hrtl

Are language and thought interdependent to the extent that only

language makes intelligent thought possible? And what role does

learning a foreign language play in the development of the young

mind?

Verfasser: Anne-Katrin Clemens

Matrikelnr.: 528905

Kontakt: [email protected]


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List of contents:

I. List of contentsII. Paper: Are language and thought interdependent to the extent

that only language makes intelligent thought possible?

1. What is intelligence?2. What sets us apart from other animals?3. Is language the key to intelligence or vice versa?4. Foreign Language Learning and the Effect of Bilingualism5. Conclusion

III. BibliographyIV. Works citedV. Eigenstndigkeitserklrung


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Are language and thought interdependent to the extent that only language makes

intelligent thought possible? And what role does learning a foreign language play in the

development of the young mind?

Anne-Katrin Clemens

Abstract

Learning a foreign language does not seem to affect semantic representations in the

first language. But does it change cognition in any way? We do know that the brain

accommodates a foreign language purely anatomically up to the age of twelve and we know

that this heightened flexibility in our neurological pathways allows for more flexible

combining of core-knowledge systems, thus giving an advantage in other cognitive areas.

What we do not know is if it actually changes our perception of the world.

Human intelligence, without a doubt, surpasses that of other creatures known to

mankind. We are also the only species known to possess highly developed language. These

two facts seem to suggest that there is a relation between language and intelligence. The

question is whether or not language and intelligence are interdependent to the extent that

only language makes intelligent thought possible. In the course of this paper I will answer

that question and show that, even though it is not the sole factor, language still plays an

important role for intelligent thought. In explaining that I will also show the effects that

learning a foreign language has on the development of the young mind.

1. What is intelligence?In order to explain the role language plays for the development of intelligent thought,

it is important to understand the basic concept of intelligence. Spearman (1927) defines

intelligence as the total mental energy at an individuals command and operating through

the channel of specific ability. These abilities have been identified quite clearly by Guilford

(1959) as cognition, memory, convergent thinking, divergent thinking and evaluation

(Sandel, 4). According to Guilford, these five abilities are relatively independent from each

other and can be developed varyingly strong, a theory that stands in direct contrast to


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Piagets (1926) earlier theory that intellectual development is a process in which each stage

or level builds upon the previous level (Sandel, 5). The probably most widely accepted theory

is that of Jensen (1969) that intelligence, regardless of the specific abilities that have been

coined, is a genetic potential and that the environment, which according to Jensen acts as a

threshold variable that can keep a child from exploiting its full potential, but can never

push him above said potential. Yet he recognizes the specific abilities and suggests that

developing them aids the child in performing up to his genetic potential (Sandel, 6).

2. What sets us apart from other animals?If we accept that intelligence is a genetic potential and know that the differences

between humans and our closest living relatives, the chimps, is less than 10% of our genetic

material, and with that ten times smaller than that between mice and rats (Lovgren, 2005),

we have to ask ourselves what exactly it is that sets us apart from other animals.

In her paper What makes us smart? Core Knowledge and Natural Language, Spelke

describes several studies that have been conducted in order to find that certain difference.

Spelkes first assumption was that whatever is unique to human cognition depends on

unique features of our early-developing, core-knowledge systems, like representation of

objects, navigation through spatial layouts or number sense (Spelke, 278). She refers to an

experiment conducted by Wynn in 1992, which I will refer to as the hand puppet

experiment.

5-month-old infants were shown a stage

with one single puppet, which was then

hidden behind a screen. After that a second

puppet was placed behind the screen, the

action clearly visible to the infants. When

the screen was lowered either one or two

puppets were revealed. The time the infants

spent looking at the display after the screen

was lowered was measured and gave

information about whether or not the


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infants were able to represent the two puppets in their minds. In the case of failure, they

would have spent more time looking at the display showing two puppets, as this would have

been new information. In the case of success, however, they would have spent more time

looking at the display with only one puppet as they would have been able to represent the

hidden puppet and the addition of the second puppet in their mind without ever having seen

both of them together. The results of this experiment showed that the 5-month-old infants

were indeed able to represent the puppets in their minds.

An analogical experiment was

conducted by Regolin and

Vallortigara in 1995 with newly

hatched chicks. The chicks spent their

first day with a center-occluded

object, in this case a triangle, and

were thus imprinted on this object.

On their second day they were placed

in a new cage and faced with two

objects, one being the full object and

the other being the two visible ends of the occluded objects with a visible gap between

them. In all cases the chicks approached the full object without gap making it clear that they

were able to represent the whole object without having seen it before (Spelke, 283 f.).

In other experiments, like natural geometry or number sense tasks, conducted to find

differences between human infants and animals, results showed that there is no

fundamental difference between human and nonhuman animal cognition. It is clear that

even though humans do have early-developing, core-knowledge systems that are part of our

intelligence, they are obviously not what sets us apart from other animals.

Since core-knowledge systems do not seem to be the key to human intelligence,

Spelke suggests that it is our uniquely human combinatorial capacities that make the

difference. Four of the main features of core-knowledge systems are that they are domain

specific, task specific, encapsulated and isolated. With growing age, however, humans are


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able to combine these core-knowledge systems. Spelke proposes that this combinatorial

capacity has none of the limits that the core-knowledge systems have and therefore allows

us to combine flexibly all other abilities we share with other animals. Spelke calls this new

capacity the natural language and says that the cognitive endowment that gives rise to it

is indeed unique to humans: the human language faculty (Spelke, 291).

She explains this with an experiment carried out by Hermer and herself in 1994.

In a reorientation experiment by Cheng in 1986, it was proven that rats were able to reorient

themselves in accord with the shape of the room or, as was shown in earlier tests, in accord

with the colours of the walls, but never in accord with both features combined.

In 1994, Hermer and Spelke tested this in 1,5-2-year-old children and the result was the

same as in Chengs rat-reorientation experiment. Even though the children succeeded in

tests involving colour but not geometrical shape, they failed to combine the information of

the differently coloured walls with the shape of the rectangular room. Obviously, children,

just as animals, lack the ability to combine different information flexibly, an ability which is

developed in humans with growing age (Spelke, 293).

In this regard, Spelke mentions that a developmental research by Hermer-Vasquez,

Moffett, and Munkholm in 2001 showed that the development of more flexible navigation

seems to be closely connected to the beginning of spatial language. Both, children and


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animals, possess the core systems for representing geometric information and colour

information, but it only the child who will later on learn the linguistic labels for these

information. Information like left of the blue wall (Spelke, 296) cannot be formulated

without the use of language and because it crosscuts the childs encapsulated core

domains (Spelke, 296) it seems that language is the crucial factor in flexibly and speedily

combining information from different core systems (Spelke, 297).

3. Is language the key to intelligence or vice versa?It seems apparent that language is indeed the key to human intelligence but it raises

the issue of why no other animal has developed language so far. Is it really language that is

the key to human intelligence or has human intelligence rather been the key factor in

evolving language, making it nothing more than a mere addition to our unique intelligence?

David Premack (2004) devotes his article Is Language the Key to Human

Intelligence? to this question. He explains the faculties that underlie the evolution of

language. One of those faculties is the capacity to acquire recursive and/or nonrecursive

grammar, which humans possess as well as chimps and monkey. The difference is that while

humans can easily learn both, chimps and monkeys only learn nonrecursive grammar. That

does not give an answer, though, as to why monkeys and chimps have never evolved

nonrecursive language. The answer to that problem is that evolving language takes more

than the capacity of recursion.

Premack sees the main abilities that helped evolve language or are necessary to do so in

voluntary control of the sensory-motor system, imitation, teaching, theory of mind and the

capacity to acquire recursive

and/or nonrecursive grammar.

We already know that neither

monkeys nor chimpanzees are

able of recursion, neither in

grammar nor in theory of mind.

So lets start with the voluntary

control of the sensory-motor

systems, meaning vocalization,


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facial expressions and hands. Humans usually have control of all of these systems and we

use all of them to communicate. Chimps and monkeys only have control over their hands;

vocalization and facial expressions are non-voluntary, reflexive. Both are important for

highly-developed language. But even if we accept that vocalization is not absolutely

necessary, as sign language has no need of it, the lack of control over facial expressions is an

important factor since they play important linguistic roles in signing. Why then did animals

never evolve nonrecursive, hands-only language?

David Premack asks two questions in this regard: Could language evolve in a species

in which the young cannot imitate the action of the speaker? and Could a species that

does not teach evolve language? (318)

The answers are simple enough. In order to evolve language for communication

and for what other reason would we need it? both skills are necessary. Premack calls the

first skill the second level of imitation (318), where the motor actions of the model are

imitated by another individual. A highly challenging task as the individual must form a

mental representation of the visually perceived action and produce and action conforming

to the representation (318). Animals are not able to do that, with the exception of chimps

under human training. They do not, however, voluntarily imitate motor actions. Nothing that

is not imitated can be passed on to other individuals, easy enough.

Teaching is even more challenging. Not only has one individual to imitate anothers

motor actions, moreover the model has to supervise and, if necessary, correct the copied

action. No animal is known to supervise let alone correct imitations of their young. If we

consider how long it takes chimps under these conditions to learn how to crack nuts with a

rock, 10 years, it is unimaginable how long it would take them to learn communicative

language, even if they had all other means necessary at hand (318-19).

Judging from this information it seems that not language makes us intelligent, but

that it is rather our intelligence that renders language possible. Premack seizes on this idea

and suggests that it is not language alone that makes us intelligent, but that it is our

flexibility. He states that all the specialties that animals have mastered can be duplicated and

even mostly surpassed by humans, because we are flexible. Animals are not. [Each] of these

species is imprisoned by its adaptation; none can duplicate the achievement of the other


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(319). For him recursive language is the key to this flexibility that makes humans so unique,

because it enables us to recombine mental elements, enables us to represent

representations. Or in Premacks words: Chimpanzees can represent what they perceive,

whereas humans can represent what they imagine. (329). By being able to do this, humans

are able to [produce] endless solutions to the problems confronted by living creatures

(320), much like evolution does, but much faster and much more economic. Did evolution,

in producing human intelligence, outstrip itself? (320) Premack proposes that it did, by

enabling us to evolve recursive language and thus master and surpass what evolution can

do.

4. Foreign Language Learning & the Effect of BilingualismEven though Premack, in contrast to Spelke, denies that language is the keyto human

intelligence, he accepts that it is indeed one key factor. If we consider that we also have ask

for the effects that learning a foreign language or being raised bilingual would have on our

intelligence. According to Spelke, it would heighten our intelligence directly. According to

Premack, it would make us even more flexible and thus heighten our intelligence indirectly.

But it is true? Can learning a foreign language enhance our achievements in other areas?

In 2007, there has been an outcry that the results of studies showing that there is a relation

between bilingualism and intelligence are overblown and that the superiority in cognitive

function doesnt stem from bilingualism, but rather from a high SES advantage. Chathams

argument, based on Morton and Harper (2007): bilingual children may be likely to come

from wealthier families than monolingual children, because the studies he refers to are

predominantly from Canada and he suggests that wealthier families are more likely to be or

raise their children bilingual. Chathams blog post caused a lot of discussion, mainly about

where he gets the idea that it is the wealthier families that are multilingual, rather than

families with migration background that are proven to have a lower income. The problem is

that Chathams post doesnt have a solid basis and Cooper (1987) published a study that

examined that problem, twenty years in advance to Chathams article.

Economic background, which was measured by the number of students receiving free

and reduced lunches, did not affect students performance. Even those who came


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from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, but took foreign language, performed

basically just as well as their more fortunate peers. (Webb, 1)

As per a research by Saunders (1998) showed, foreign language instruction does indeed

seem to have a positive effect on other areas. She examined third grade students who had

received foreign language instruction five days a week for thirty minutes per day over a

period of four years and compared them with fourth grade students who had not received

any foreign language instruction. She found those students in the ESFL [Elementary School

Foreign Language] program scored significantly higher on the Math portion if the ITBS [Iowa

Test Of Basic Skills] than the older students had scored (Webb, 1). Her support earlier

findings by Armstrong and Rogers (1997), who had constructed a study which showed that

third graders who were taught Spanish for thirty minutes, three times per week showed

statistically significant gains in their Metropolitan Achievement Test scores in the areas of

math and language (Webb, 1-2). A short article in the Kids Sense, 42. emphasizes that

[m]athematical skills, problem solving skills and the ability to synthesize information

increase with exposure to foreign language (Webb, 7). If we believe all of these findings, it

seems obvious that learning a foreign language has positive effects on our overall

intelligence. But how come?

Hunt(1964) already recognized the importance of language in the development of

young children, when he observed the opposite. He found that children who lack linguistic

abilities have perceptual deficiencies because they recognize fewer objects and

subsequently have fewer interests. The reason he sees for this is that language give us the

opportunity to categorize and integrate experiences (Sandel, 10).

Acquiring language can be seen as solving a problem. The need to communicate is

the problem and by mastering language we solve this problem. Hakuta (1985) explains this

with his theory that a mind that has worked on two problems, i.e. learning two languages,

has had more experience solving problems than a mind that has worked on just one

language (64). That brings us back to Premack, who states that language makes us more

flexible than other animals. According to the fact that up until the age of 12 new

neurological patterns are formed in the brain to accommodate a new language this would be

absolutely right. More diverse brain patterns consequently means more flexibility.


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Kousta, Vinson, and Vigliocco (2008) investigated on bilingualism in connection to the

linguistic relativity hypothesis. Their approach was to examine the strength and

pervasiveness of language-specific effects on cognition through the comparison of

monolingual and bilingual speakers using the same task and identical stimuli (854).

They wanted to prove that semantic representations do not influence cognition in any

significant way. Their approach to this problem was to examine bilingual speakers of Italian,

a language with grammatical gender, and English, a language without grammatical gender, in

comparison with monolingual speakers of English and Italian and how the semantic encoding

of grammatical gender is transferred from language to the other or how it influences

cognition. Monolinguals with background knowledge of other languages were excluded from

the experiment. In A set of tests monolinguals and bilinguals had to produce labels for

pictures they were shown under time pressure they had a certain time frame in which to

label these pictures. The labeling was done with either bare nouns or with noun phrases

consisting of a determiner and a noun. To make the data comparable the English labels were

given the grammatical gender of the Italian equivalent. The response types were categorized

into acceptable responses, correct or consistently-used, different label, and errors, as can be

seen in the table below. Errors were subcategorizes into lexical errors, a label that did not

qualify as a different label, omissions, when no response was given, self-corrections and

miscellanea, under which all other responses were filed, such as incomplete or inaudible

responses.


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The data collected for English monolinguals served as baseline. Since gender is not a formal

category in English, English semantic errors are driven by visual and conceptual similarity

(e.g., shared habitat, size, behavior, membership in the same genus) (848). The question on

is if Italian speaker make the same types of errors, reflecting the same types of similarity or if

grammatical gender plays a role as well. The results for gender-preserving errors, as visible

in the figure below, suggest that English participants had a negative correlation between

visual-conceptual similarity and gender -

as was expected because gender was

preserved below chance. Italian

monolinguals stand in contrast to the

English monolingual participants. Their

gender preservation was much higher,

showing a positive correlation between

visual-conceptual similarity and gender,

even though it would have been expected

to be even higher in noun phrases than in

bare nouns. Kousta, Vinson, and Vigliocco

explain this with the fact that in gendered

languages, like Italian, determiners are

selected on the basis of syntactic and phonological information, making the selection

happening so late during the phonological encoding of the noun phrase that it has little

effect on the lemma selection. But the results still show that for Italian speakers grammatical

gender increases semantic similarity (851).

Kousta, Vinson, and Vigliocco repeated the same experiment under the same

conditions with native Italian speaker who were highly proficient in English. The participants

had learned English after the age of 6 and had been living in the UK for at least 9 months. If

we assume that there is a transfer of gender information between languages, the results

should show that gender-preserving errors for Italian-English bilinguals should be much

greater than those of English monolinguals, no matter in which language the tests are

conducted.


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As the table below shows, the error rates in general were about the same as in the

experiment with monolinguals.

But if we take a look at the results for gender-

preserving errors the results are surprising for

us.

There is no significant difference in the

proprotion of gender-preserving errors

between English or Italian monolinguals and

Italian-English bilinguals. The data suggests

that semantic representations of bilingual

speakers in these studies are appropriate for

each of their languages (853) and that the

behaviour of bilingual speakers is predicted by the behaviour of monolingual speakers

(853).

Kousta, Vinson, and Vigliocco interpret this data by saying that even though there is

evidence for linguistic relativity within the same speaker it is very limited. If proficient

bilinguals who acquired their second language after their first show evidence of adaptation

to monolingual norms for their second language, then their first language has a very limited

effect, that is, an effect on just that language (853-54). This means that learning a foreign


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language does not seem to affect semantic representations in the first language. But does it

change cognition in any way? We do know that the brain accommodates a foreign language

purely anatomically up to the age of twelve and we know that this heightened flexibility in

our neurological pathways allows for more flexible combining of core-knowledge systems,

thus giving an advantage in other cognitive areas. What we do not know is if it actually

changes our perception of the world.

5. ConclusionAfter going through all this data and working through studies and graphics showing

the existence or non-existence of the effects of language on intelligence, is the question of

whether or not intelligent thought would be possible without language answered?

I think it is obvious how much of an effect language and intelligence have on each other and

it seems apparent that they are indeed interdependent to a great extent. But are they

interdependent enough so that one could not exist without the other? Could language have

evolved without human intelligence? No, it could not have. Premack has made this much

obvious. But the reverse question remains just that a question. Why?

In order to prove that intelligence can either only exist with or also without language we

would need to study languageless individuals. And here lies the problem. Is there even such

a thing as a languageless individual? In the past, persons have been found that grew up

without ever having been in contact with what we understand as language. But that does

not mean that they have no language whatsoever. Individuals, especially children, have been

known to invent they own language, independent from any other language. So called feral

children have been studied only after they came into contact with language. It would have

been impossible for scientists to study them without using language themselves and, more

importantly, because it would have been unethical.

What we do know, however, is that language does indeed have an effect on

intelligence. It may not determine our thoughts or influence our cognition as significantly as

originally thought, but it is a tool for us to categorize our experiences, to label our

perception and to grasp ideas and meanings beyond the perceivable. Research is far from

done in this field of study, but has already given an understanding of how important

linguistic representation is in teaching situations and how harmful impoverishment of


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communication is for children. It has become obvious how very important language in

general is, and how far beyond the obvious benefits of better job opportunities the effects of

foreign language learning can reach.


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Bibliography:

Hakuta, Kenji. Cognitive Development in Bilingual Instruction. Issues in English Language Development.

National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. (1985): 63-67.

18 Aug. 2010

Kousta, Stavroula-Thaleia, David P. Vinson, and Gabriella Vigliocco. Investigating Linguistic Relativity Through

Bilingualism: The Case of Grammatical Gender. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning,

Memory, and Cognition. 34.4 (2008): 843-858.

17. Aug. 2010

Lovgren, Stefan. Chimps, Humans 96 Percent the Same, Gene Study Finds. National Geographic News.

31 August 2005.

18. Aug. 2010

Premack, David. Is Language the Key to Human Intelligence? Science Magazine. 303 (2004): 318-320.

18. Aug. 2010

Sandel, Lenore. Summary #5: Review of Historical Research: The Relationship Between Language and

Intelligence. Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), 1998.

16. Aug. 2010

Spelke, Elizabeth S. What Makes Us Smart? Core Knowledge and Natural Language. Language in Mind.

Ed. Dedre Gentner and Susan Goldin-Meadow. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003: 277-311.

Webb, Elizabeth L. The Effect of Second Language Learning on Test Scores, Intelligence and Achievement. An

Annotated Bibliography. Georgia Department of Education.

19 Aug. 2010


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Works cited:

Hakuta, Kenji. Cognitive Development in Bilingual Instruction. Issues in English Language Development.

National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. (1985): 63-67.

18 Aug. 2010

Kousta, Stavroula-Thaleia, David P. Vinson, and Gabriella Vigliocco. Investigating Linguistic Relativity Through

Bilingualism: The Case of Grammatical Gender. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning,

Memory, and Cognition. 34.4 (2008): 843-858.

17. Aug. 2010

Premack, David. Is Language the Key to Human Intelligence? Science Magazine. 303 (2004): 318-320.

18. Aug. 2010

Sandel, Lenore. Summary #5: Review of Historical Research: The Relationship Between Language and

Intelligence. Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), 1998.

16. Aug. 2010

Spelke, Elizabeth S. What Makes Us Smart? Core Knowledge and Natural Language. Language in Mind.

Ed. Dedre Gentner and Susan Goldin-Meadow. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003: 277-311.

Webb, Elizabeth L. The Effect of Second Language Learning on Test Scores, Intelligence and Achievement. An

Annotated Bibliography. Georgia Department of Education.

19 Aug. 2010

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