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Welcome to Language in Perception and Thought!  

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Welcome to Language in Perception and Thought!  

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In this class we'll practice the technical skills you need to conduct a robust and well powered investigation into the relationship between language and the mind using techniques from psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology, framed by a thorough understanding of sociolinguistics and language documentation.

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AI generated art: 'Language in Perception & Thought' created using DREAM by Wombo Art

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We plan to hold the whole class in person again! virtually for some of this semester, as we have found this easier for coordinating real-time conversation without struggling to hear each other through masks, while seated far apart.  After Week 1 our classes will be ✨synchronous✨ so that we can spend most of our time together discussing content, solving puzzles and quizzing each other.

Enrolled students can find more info on NTU-Learn, and our Class Linkfest.

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This self-study module involves watching, listening and learning a bit about the themes of the class, and the assessment. On these 4 pages you'll see a sequence of videos and activities.

To finish off, you'll be asked to document some details about your own languages using a tool called the Language Fingerprint and write a short no-stakes reflection about the ideas you have encountered.

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✏️✏️✏️What is a no-stakes reflection? Well, your participation grade requires you to submit homework from time to time. In no-stakes homework, the submission doesn't get a grade, and every fair attempt gets one point.

✏️✏️✏️A no-stakes reflection is a chance to reflect on the material you have encountered, and test out your usage of the technical terms. You'll get qualitative feedback (words), but not quantitative feedback (grades). This way you can engage with the concepts while still exploring them - in a safe, no-stress environment 💪🏻

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How are language and thought related?

This is a great intro video to help ground the way you are thinking about relationships between language and non-linguistic properties of cognition, including memory, processing speed, perception and thought more broadly.

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Jot down your notes as you watch this video...

What are the languages Lera Boroditsky talks about?

What are the domains of language that she mentions?

Opinion: Do you think language influences cognition?

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Lera Boroditsky: How language shapes the way we think

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There are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world -- and they all have different sounds, vocabularies and structures. But do they shape the way we think? Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky shares examples of language -- from an Aboriginal community in Australia that uses cardinal directions instead of left and right to the multiple words for blue in Russian -- that suggest the answer is a resounding yes.

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If we plan to test the Whorfian Hypothesis...

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If we plan to test the Whorfian Hypothesis...

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We need to be able to talk about and define languages!
The content in these self-study sections will help you learn about technical vocab you'll need to do your science with precision and care.

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In Language in Perception and Thought we will be using a definition of language that might be a bit different to the way you have thought about it before.

A language has...
👉🏻 shared symbols & rules
👉🏻 for communicating among people who share them

Symbols are words that can be spoken or signed in real time, that represent meaning. Rules are ways of combining symbols into more complex units of meaning. These symbols and rules are shared by the community who use them for communicating with each other.

This definition simply means that everyone in a particular linguistic community has a common understanding of the system they use. You'll notice this definition doesn't have anything to say about what is 'good' or 'bad' language use - rather, any system that is shared by a community is a real language for that community.

This kind of definition is used by formal linguists, psycholinguists, sociolinguists, sociologists and language theorists. It is much less common among educators... for reasons that will become apparent as we go on.

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👉🏻 For some language users, particular ways of talking, signing or writing are considered "correct," while others are considered "incorrect", or "broken". This is the prescriptive approach. If you ever received an essay covered in red ink, not because of the content, but because the sentences were not considered 'grammatically correct', then you have experienced the prescriptive approach to language. What is weird is that whole communities of people can share patterns of language use when they speak together, but the same patterns of language can be 'incorrect' when written down. This approach is common in formal education, where teachers believe part of their job is to help children change the way they speak or write so that it matches a documented 'standard'.

👉🏻 The descriptive approach aims to describe what people do with language, regardless of whether it is 'formal' or 'correct' in an academic sense. This perspective allows us to understand language from inside the speaker's own mind. We are less concerned with what is 'correct' for some abstract idea of 'Standard language', but rather, what is true for Kong Meng when he talks to his uncles? what is true for Siti when she talks to her mum? This approach is more common among linguists and cognitive scientists.

If you want to find out more about the difference between descriptive and prescriptive models of language, you can read more about it in this LSA article.

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Since our working definition of language is usage based (i.e., the language people use), in this class we we will be taking a descriptive approach to language, not a prescriptive approach.

This means we will look at and think about the words and rules that people use, and the ways that people use them, without judging whether we think it is 'correct' to use language in this way.

The descriptive approach zooms in on the individual's linguistic experience and skills, in the context of what they share with others. When we get into the Whorfian hypothesis you'll start to see why it matters what is in the mind of an individual (how language works for them) not what is in a dictionary!

This approach is at the core of the work that we do together in Language in Perception and Thought.

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Taking a descriptive approach means we can investigate any aspect of language use, including informal kinds like slang!

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Watch this video where I say hi for the first time. You might find it helpful to jot down notes as I go along.

pssst. I use emojis to code materials, for example:
🎞 = video
🗣 = speech
🔡 = English captions

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Self Study Part 2: How do languages vary?