Support for lateralization of the Whorf effect beyond the realm of color discrimination

Brain and Language (v.105-2)
by Aubrey L. Gilbert, Terry Regier, Paul Kaye, and Richard B. Ivry

Recent work has shown that Whorf effects of language on color discrimination are stronger in the right visual field than in the left. Here we show that this phenomenon is not limited to color: The perception of animal figures (cats and dogs) was more strongly affected by linguistic categories for stimuli presented to the right visual field than those presented to the left. Moreover, the magnitude of the visual field asymmetry was reduced when demands on verbal working memory were increased by a secondary task. This reduction did not occur when the secondary task imposed demands on spatial working memory. Taken together, these results demonstrate that the lateralized Whorf effect may be quite general, reflecting an interaction of linguistic and perceptual codes primarily in the left hemisphere.

From the "Lateralization" dept. Since language appears to be lateralized it then follows that you process things with your right eye differently than you do with your left eye because right eye processing might be influenced, however slightly, from your left lateralized language processing component. That's awesome! Good on Gilbert for doing this work (check out her dissertation for more in-depth analysis of this type of evidence).

So are we one step closer to declaring a winner of the fight on linguistic relativism?

Articulatory settings of French and English monolingual and bilingual speakers

Dissertation from The University of British Columbia
by Wilson, I.L.

Abstract:

This dissertation investigates articulatory setting (AS), a language's underlying or default posture of the articulators (i.e., the tongue, jaw, and lips). Inter-speech posture (ISP) of the articulators (the position of the articulators when they are motionless during inter-utterance pauses) is used as a measure of AS in Canadian English and Quebecois French. The dissertation reports two experiments using a combination of Optotrak and ultrasound imaging to test whether ISP is language specific in both monolingual and bilingual speakers, whether it is affected by phonetic context, and whether it is influenced by speech mode (monolingual or bilingual). Results of Experiment 1 show significant differences in ISP across the English and French monolingual groups, with English exhibiting a higher tongue tip, more protruded upper and lower lips, and narrower horizontal lip aperture. Results also show that for English speakers, the jaw ISP is somewhat influenced by phonetic context while the lip and tongue ISP are not. For French speakers, only certain lip components of ISP are influenced by phonetic context while the ISP of the tongue and jaw are not. Results of Experiment 2 show that upper and lower lip protrusion are greater for the English ISP than for the French ISP, in all bilinguals who were perceived as native speakers of both of their languages, but in none of the other bilinguals. Also, tongue tip height results mirrored those of the monolingual groups, for half of the bilinguals perceived as native speakers of both languages, but for no other bilinguals. Finally, results show that there is no unique bilingual-mode ISP, but instead one that is equivalent to the monolingual-mode ISP of a speaker's currently most-used language. This research empirically confirms centuries of non-instrumental evidence for the existence of AS, and thus supports calls for the teaching of AS to L2 learners. Additionally, the lack of phonetic carry-over effect on ISP is encouraging for studies that have used ISP as a measurement baseline. Finally, the fact that there is no unique ISP for bilingual speech mode suggests that differences between monolingual and bilingual modes do not hold at the phonetic level.

From the "Crazy interesting stuff we don't normally think of" dept. I'm not really 100% clear about what it tells us, but I think it's fascinating that speakers of different languages would have different 'rest' positions for their articulators. I'm not sure that it's possible to teach second language learners how to achieve more natural rest positions, but it would be really great to see in what way having a non-native rest position might influence the production of a second language, or whether a late acquired second language can lead to a change in rest position of articulators when speaking that second language. Fascinating!

Toward a linguistic conception of thought

Dissertation from the University of Washington
by Stenberg, B.J.

Abstract:

The traditional, and still most common, view of the relationship between language and thought is that language is merely a tool for expressing thoughts. I argue that this view is mistaken and that language is the very thing that makes thought possible in the first place. I mean a number of things by this. I mean that no one can have any thoughts at all without first being a practiced member of a linguistic community. I mean literally that the thoughts themselves are linguistic entities: thoughts are, as it is sometimes put, just 'sentences in the head.' And, furthermore, I mean that thoughts are actually constituted by symbols of the natural language(s) one speaks. I call this view the Linguistic Theory of Thought (LTT), and it is a version of the Representational Theory of Mind. The main goal of my project is to lay the foundation for the LTT: to show that it is at the very least a coherent possibility, and find space for it among its representationalist peers. Having found a general place for the LTT to sit, I proceed to argue that this position is stable. First I develop a theory of meaning, adapting Wilfrid Sellars' view that specifying the meaning of a linguistic type involves classifying that type functionally. By treating meaning as functional classification I can specify the meanings of words without appealing to any supposedly antecedent thoughts. Next I argue that thinking is a matter of social practice. In this part of the project I rely on the philosophical framework provided by Sellars (his 'Psychological Nominalism'), and then modify the Sellarsian framework to support my view that our thoughts themselves are constituted by the symbols of the natural language(s) we speak. Ultimately, my project is both a modernizing of Sellars' view, developing and broadening his arguments in order to critique many of the representationalists that wrote (and continue to write) after him, and the development of a modern representationalist theory of thought that takes seriously the insights of Sellars, Quine, and those who have followed in their footsteps.

From the "Seriously, WTF!" dept. Seriously. WTF? We're going to use logic to prove what thought is made of? Haven't we outgrown this bullshit? It's the 21st century, who is still persuaded by this kind of argumentation w.r.t. cognitive processes? I guess I shouldn't prejudge without reading the dissertation, but INSPIRE HOPE this abstract does not.

Showing what we see: Psychoanalytic vision, transparency, and linguistic pragmatics

Dissertation from Duquesne University
By Bortle, S.

Abstract:

This dissertation explores the possibilities that pragmatic linguistic analytic methods might have for psychoanalysis, both in the latter's attempts to establish itself as an empirically grounded endeavor and in its understanding of its own theoretical constructs. I begin with a discussion of some of the troubles psychoanalysis has had in legitimizing itself in the eyes of its peers since in inception, suggesting that a closer relationship with already-established sociolinguistic sciences (i.e. pragmatic analysis of linguistic interaction) may aid in its promotion. I then describe how these methods have already been taken up within the field of psychology in the study of therapy process, noting a gap in the research such that they have yet to be brought to bear on the analysis of psychoanalytic constructs. I discuss some theoretical overlaps that already exist between psychoanalytic theory and the linguistic philosopher John Austin (namely critiques of modern subjectivity and the function of language) and give examples of possible conceptual intersections that might be further expanded in the future. I discuss repression and projective identification as two such possibilities. I conclude with some of the implications and limitations of this dialogue, noting that a pragmatic perspective might be better suited to interpersonal theories of psychoanalysis. I discuss the hegemonizing risk inherent in the metaphor of vision. I also address in what way linguistic pragmatic methods---and a psychoanalytic theory that centers itself around the construct of unconscious intention---can in the end be said to be "empirical." While these problems are not likely be solved in the near future, a continued discussion of them, stemming from viewing psychoanalytic constructs through a pragmatic lens, will nonetheless be fruitful.

From our "WTF" department. WTF?

Antipresuppositions

In A. Ueyama(ed.), Theoretical and Empirical Studies of
Reference and Anaphora: Toward the establishment of generative grammar as an empirical science (2006)
by Percus, Orin

Abstract

Some sentences come with an interesting kind of condition on their use: they require that a certain proposition p not be taken for granted. Recent work by Sauerland and Schlenker proposes an explanation: the sentences in question compete with other sentences that require that p be taken for granted, and win only when those other sentences are infelicitous. This paper is concerned with the precise nature of this competition, and with what can be learned from it.

Ugh... from our "Toward the establishment of generative grammar as an empirical science" Dept.

This thing here called Anti-presupposition is a decent observation about some interesting types of clauses in English. My problem is with the author's attributing some of these observations to what ultimately amounts to our language module.

One such case that results from the analysis is the "empirical evidence" that the quantifier 'all' is infelicitous if applied to a set that maximally contains two elements. So a sentence such as (1) sounds bad (is ungrammatical?) and is dispreferred to (2)

1. *The mafia broke all of his legs
2. The mafia broke both of his legs

This 'anti-duality' condition, which results from anti-presupposition triggered by the quantifier, is a result of the fact that English happens to have a special quantifier for exactly these cases ('both'). I think this is a fine hypothesis, which appears to be verified by its extension across other languages that have a 'both'-like quantifier... until you look at French, which seems to show this 'anti-duality' but doesn't have a quantifier that is 'both'-like enough. But I digress...

Time will tell if this hypothesis will live on. But my problem is with the underlying notion that this anti-duality condition, like the anti-presupposition notion, is entirely language bound and not a result of general cognitive constraints (or simple frequency issues). A lot of effort is spent covering all the instances of anti-presupposition and anti-duality, but underlying this is the unquestioned assumption that this phenomenon is a product of UG. This fault is going to affect our ability to, as the abstract suggests is the goal of the article, learn something from anti-presuppositions.

Internet search result probabilities: Heaps' Law and Word Associativity

Journal of Quantitative Linguistics (v.16-1)
by Lansey, Jonathan C & Bukiet, Bruce

Abstracts

We study the number of internet search results returned from multi-word queries based on the number of results returned when each word is searched for individually. We derive a model to describe search result values for multi-word queries using the total number of pages indexed by Google and by applying the Zipf power law to the words per page distribution on the internet and Heaps' law for unique word counts. Based on data from 351 word pairs each with exactly one hit when searched for together, and a Zipf law coefficient determined in other studies, we approximate the Heaps' law coefficient for the indexed worldwide web (about 8 billion pages) to be b = 0.52. Previous studies used under 20,000 pages. We demonstrate through examples how the model can be used to analyze automatically the relatedness of word pairs assigning each a value we call "strength of associativity'. We demonstrate the validity of our method with word triplets and through two experiments conducted 8 months apart. We then use our model to compare the index sizes of competing search giants Yahoo and Google.

This one is from the "applied computational google fight!" dept. I think it's awesome that you could accurately model the success of searching the internet using multiple key words. Awesomer still is the result that the model provides word associativity.

It's pretty crazy what can be done with this immense database we call 'the internet'. In the near future, we'll figure out ways in which this database can be mined for answers to all of life's questions. It will also gain sentience and become our overlord, and that's ok.

It seems unfortunate, however, that the results (as established in the abstract) are not provided with any suggestions for why anyone (except maybe big search engine designers) should care. I'm 100% sure that there is at least one reason, if not several, why I should care. But it isn't clear what that reason is, and that's a shame.

Discursive illusions in the American National Strategy for Combating Terrorism

Journal of Language and Politics (v.7-2)
by Bhatia, Aditi

Abstract:

Social realities are often negotiated and determined by elite groups of society, including political and religious leaders, the mass media, and even professional experts, who give meaning to complex, multifaceted constructs such as terrorism consistent with their individual socio-political agendas. The Bush Administration's National Strategy for Combating Terrorism (NSCT) (2003) defines what we the public and media understand by the term terrorism; who are terrorists; what constitutes terrorism; how we can fight terrorism, etc. In order to convince audiences that the version of reality that the NSCT is representing is the objective truth, particular themes such as the construction of religion, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), orientalism, and attack vs. self-defence, typically realised through the use of rhetorical resources such as category work, appeals to historicity, negative other-presentation, and the use of metaphor, are utilised. Metaphors are used to construct new and alternate realities. They allow a subjective conceptualisation of reality to appear more convincing through the invocation of emotions and ideologies. Drawing on a detailed analysis of NSCT, the paper investigates how metaphors are combined with other features of language and rhetoric to achieve the themes mentioned above enabling the discourse of illusion to take effect.

This one is from our "who is this analysis helping?" dept. This postmodern analysis probably has some very intelligent things to say about how language (metaphors and other rhetorical devices) is used in a political context, with respect to TERRORISM, to fool the populace into a state that the powers find more easily governable. It's too bad that the language is impenetrable to anyone who might actually do something about it.

I've harped on this point before, but:

I don't mean to invalidate this kind of research because I actually like the idea that someone is thinking critically about these kinds of issues. But in academic settings we ought to be more aware of who we want our audience to be. If you need an advanced degree in postmodern critical discourse analysis to follow these potentially insightful contents, then it feels to me like you're wasting your precious time.

Most of all the linguistics articles found in journals today suffers from this problem to some degree. It's impossible to avoid requiring that your reader share a technical vocabulary for discussing complex ideas (this drawback of advanced research exists in all fields, of course). But leave those complex ideas for the main article. Make your abstract accessible! It's the only way that the field of linguistics is going to get anywhere.

Los limites de la selecion natural y el evominimalismo. Antecedentes, actualidad y perspectivas del pensamiento chomskyano sobre los origenes...

Translated title: The limits of natural selection and Evo-Minimalism. Antecedents, State of the Art and Prospects of Chomsky's ideas on the evolutionary origins of languages.
Verba (v.35)
by Lorenzo, Guillermo

Abstracts

This paper argues, against the claims of several people, that understanding the evolutionary origins of language has always been within the chomskyan linguistic agenda. The paper explains Chomsky's traditional rejection of the Darwinian recipe of evolution by means of natural selection as an appropriate mechanism for the case of language & explores the possibilities of the Minimalism Program as an alternative framework in order to solve the question.

This one is from the "On the wrong path" dept. This short abstract masks a GIGANTIC argument that is brewing in some circles. The abstract translation is a little misleading (as is my total lack of spanish fluency) but I think the argument here is that Chomsky has broken evidence of how Darwinian Evolution does not explain the emergence of Language.

I would probably agree that traditional Darwinian Evolution does not, alone, explain the emergence of Language. But I am more than a little dubious that the Minimalist Program is on the right path toward an explanation of the appropriate mechanism.

I'm always happy to see articles of this nature, even if they are written in languages I can't understand well enough to read them in. What makes this article crazy isn't that I disagree with one of its premises, but that it's just so unlike the kind of argumentative articles you typically see in Linguistics journals (but in a good way).

Brief training with co-speech gesture lends a hand to word learning in a foreign language

Language and Cognitive Processes (v.24-2)
by Spencer D. Kelly; Tara McDevitt; and Megan Esch

Abstracts

Recent research in psychology and neuroscience has demonstrated that co-speech gestures are semantically integrated with speech during language comprehension and development. The present study explored whether gestures also play a role in language learning in adults. In Experiment 1, we exposed adults to a brief training session presenting novel Japanese verbs with and without hand gestures. Three sets of memory tests (at five minutes, two days and one week) showed that the greatest word learning occurred when gestures conveyed redundant imagistic information to speech. Experiment 2 was a preliminary investigation into possible neural correlates for such learning. We exposed participants to similar training sessions over three days and then measured event-related potentials (ERPs) to words learned with and without co-speech gestures. The main finding was that words learned with gesture produced a larger Late Positive Complex (indexing recollection) in bi-lateral parietal sites than words learned without gesture. However, there was no significant difference between the two conditions for the N400 component (indexing familiarity). The results have implications for pedagogical practices in foreign language instruction and theories of gesture-speech integration.

This one is from the "Who would've guessed" dept. It turns out that whether an instructor performs certain gesture types while teaching new words can have an affect on the students' retention of that word.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Gesture is a critical component of language and it belongs in our unification theory.

But I don't really understand what the point of the ERP study was... Looking forward to the followup article.

Rhotacization and the 'Beijing Smooth Operator': The social meaning of a linguistic variable

Journal of Sociolinguistics (v.12-2)
by Zhang, Qing

Abstracts

Recent sociolinguistic studies on style have focused much attention on the construction of social meaning in situated discursive practices. Despite a general recognition that the linguistic resources used are often already imbued with social meanings, little research has been done on what these meanings may be. Focusing on rhotacization, a sociolinguistic variable in Beijing Mandarin, this article explores its imbued social meanings and sociocultural associations. I demonstrate that rhotacization takes on semiotic saliency through co-occurrence with key Beijing cultural terms and frequent use in written representations of authentic Beijing-ness. Furthermore, this feature is associated with the 'Beijing Smooth Operator,' a salient male local character type, and is ideologically construed as reflecting its characterological attributes. The findings of this study shed light on the meaning potential of a linguistic variable, rhotacization in this case, which can enhance understanding of the possibilities and constraints for its use and meaning in new contexts.

This one is from the "Put your tongue right here..." dept. My favorite bits of sociolinguistics are usually those studies that involve speakers making linguistic choices to exhibit their cultural and social identities. Here we have a perfect example.

My understanding of the situation: The upper crust socialites associate themselves with the Beijing Powerful (or Hip) by making some of their vowels a bit more r-like. I don't really know which vowels, though when I watch "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" the rhoticization that is most evident to my naive ears is that which comes after voiceless palatal fricatives. When I hear mandarin from family members, this rhotic vowel just doesn't seem to be there... ever.

So this article here attempts to discover the "meaning" of rhoticizing. Sounds awesome, but good luck with the quantitative analysis...