The influence of language on cognitive processes

In any attempt to understand the relationship between culture and cognitive processes, it is first necessary to consider the problem of language. Language is not only the means by which we get most of the information about culture and cognitive processes, but according to some theories (see below) - also the main factor determining our thought processes. The first idea is obvious. Almost all data on intercultural differences in cognitive processes were obtained using verbal reports or other verbal responses of the subjects.

The second requires a detailed discussion. It is not only not obvious, but in some ways even contradicts common sense. Most people believe that language is a means by which a person expresses his feelings and thoughts, and it does not matter where a person was born. What role is played by the fact that a person speaks exactly in a given language, and not in some other language?

Linguistic relativity (B. Whorf hypothesis)

At the highest level of generalization in the language, two components can be distinguished: semantic and syntactic. Most researchers, trying to experimentally find out the relationship between language and thinking, have always focused on the semantic side in the spirit of the work of Benjamin Lee Whorf. In this case, the linguistic variable is taken as the richness of the dictionary, which language has to describe this area of ​​reality.

It is possible to perceive and structure the world in different ways, and the language that a person learns in childhood determines his way of seeing the world and structuring it. This view was all supported and developed by the American language researcher Benjamin Whorf, specializing in Indian languages, formulating the basic concept as follows: "It was found that the basis of the language system of any language (grammar) is not just a tool for thought reproduction. On the contrary, grammar itself forms the thought, is the program and guide of the thinking activity of the individual. " (Wharf, 1960, p. 174-175).

From the point of view of linguistic relativity of Whorf, language is a system of interrelated categories, which, on the one hand, reflects, on the other, fixes a certain view of the world. At the vocabulary level, each language encodes, language is a system of interrelated categories, which, on the one hand, reflects, on the other, captures a certain world view. At the vocabulary level, each language encodes some areas more thoroughly than others. There is an opinion that if in a certain language there is only one word as a symbol of some phenomenon, then this word easily becomes a classification principle for native speakers.

Here are two additional examples cited by Wharf: The Hopi people designate with the same word all flying objects, except birds (for example, airplanes, insects, pilots), while in most languages ​​for all these things there are separate concepts On the other hand, Eskimos use a number of different words to designate snow: falling snow, melting snow, dry snow — then, as they usually use one word ..

The Whorf hypothesis about the relationship between culture and cognitive processes actually contains two statements that should be considered separately. First, groups of people who speak different languages ​​perceive and comprehend the world differently. This statement is called linguistic relativity.

The second statement goes beyond the simple assumption that there are differences in cognitive processes associated with language differences. It is argued that the reason for these differences is language. This doctrine of linguistic determinism, in essence, means that there is a one-sided causal relationship between language and cognitive processes.

Extreme forms of linguistic relativity and determinism would have serious consequences not only for the study of mankind itself, but also for the study of nature, since they tightly close the path to objective knowledge. Everything that a person experiences and perceives is, in a sense, arbitrary. In this case, it is primarily due to the fact that in his language group it is customary to talk about the outside world. The study of the world would be limited only to those phenomena and features that are encoded in our language and the possibility of the exchange of knowledge would be very limited if not excluded.

Such a concept can be challenged by considering those aspects of the language that, according to Whorf, have an impact on cognition and perception. The first aspect concerns the question of how individual language concepts classify the world around them (vocabulary or language vocabulary). The second aspect is the rules of combining the basic meaningful units of a language, or grammar. Again, according to Whorf, these aspects of the language are associated both with the characteristics of culture (for example, with respect to time, quantification, etc. in a particular culture), and with individual characteristics) with the processes of perception or thinking in an individual person. century).

Vocabulary. Color perception.

A classic example of the fact that different languages ​​differ from each other in the way they classify the perceived world in their vocabulary can be the fact that different languages ​​have different numbers of words denoting colors and distinguish different parts of the color spectrum. You can also give examples of linguistic differences in the languages ​​of the aforementioned Hopi and Eskimo.

What do such linguistic differences mean? If there are no separate words in any language to designate certain phenomena, this may mean that people who speak this language are not able to distinguish these phenomena from the rest.

Some facts of linguistic behavior contradict Whorf's thesis that the absence or presence of lexical distinction corresponds to the absence or presence of perceptual or conceptual distinction. The linguistic behavior of Whorf himself — the ability to translate Eskimo words denoting snow using English phrases — indicates the opposite .. despite the fact that sometimes it is impossible to translate word for word from one language to another and often when translating certain words occur. the loss, the fact of the preservation and expression of at least some part of the meaning of the original, when translated, speaks against rigid identification of verbal categories with categories of thinking.

On the basis of such studies of linguistic languages, Charles Hokket (1954, p. 122) concluded that the most correct solution to the question of lexical differences can be formulated as follows: languages ​​differ from each other not only in that they can be expressed as they are easier to express.

Brown and Lenneberg (1954), the authors of one of the first studies in this field, suggested that the degree of ease of expressing a certain distinction in a given language corresponds to the frequency of cases when appropriate perceptual distinction is necessary to make in everyday life. For example, Eskimos should constantly judge snow, while Americans encounter such a phenomenon in rare cases. Accordingly, it follows that the easier it is to verbally designate certain perceptual categories, the more easily they can be applied in various cognitive activities and processes.

Among the various areas of perception, researchers Brown and Lenneberg chose color perception. Such a choice can be motivated not only by the fact that such an object of study is classical, but also by the fact that the color space is convenient to investigate because it is exhaustively mapped and measured, it highlights the physical parameters that can be attributed to various notation. In the color space in continuous gradations, there are three physical parameters by which colors differ from each other - tone, brightness and saturation. These grades are arbitrarily divided by language into specific segments, which makes it possible to consider the approved case as an ideal illustration of the general concept of the Whorf hypothesis about the relationship between language and reality.

From the cognitive processes for the experiment was selected memory. The authors correlated it with ease of designation or codability as a language variable. The reason for this choice, according to the researchers, is that memorization of color is partly in the memory of its name. In such a case, colors that can be easily and adequately identified should be remembered better than those that are difficult to verbally identify.

A similar experiment was conducted with subjects who speak English. The authors proceeded from the assumption that the relationship between codedness and memorization is the same in all languages. The test subjects showed 24 colored chips one by one, their task was to name the color of each of them as soon as possible. As a result, the following regularity was established: the longer the name of a color, the longer it took to identify it and the less correspondence between the answers of various subjects.

In order to clarify the connection between coding and memorization, an experiment on recognition was performed with another group of subjects. The subject must have seen 4 out of 24 colored chips for five seconds. After that, the chips were removed, and the subject had to find the corresponding colors among 120 different colors. The number of correct identifications was taken as an indicator of recognition. Under such experimental conditions, a weak link between codedness (agreement in naming a certain color) and its recognition was found .. when the task was facilitated by presenting only one chip for recognition, the connection between viewer distinction and recognition turned out to be significant, which indicates the existence the close relationship between stimulus and memory, not language and memory.

Most recently, the hypothesis of linguistic relativity in the field of color perception begins to undergo co-opinion. For a long time, the color space was considered as an object, which is characterized by uniform physical variations and each of the languages ​​is arbitrarily divided into segments corresponding to the color categories existing in these languages ​​.. A study conducted by two anthropologists (Berlin, Kay, 1969), showed that such a representation is incorrect. The experiment consisted in the fact that people from different language groups had to select from the set of color chips those that best fit the language categories of their languages, and also indicate all the chips that can be called by these words. As a result, the selected focus colors (Berlin / Kay) turned out to be the same, despite the fact that the limits of color designations did not coincide.

According to Berlin Kay, we can conclude that when considering language coding of colors, intercultural differences were usually emphasized earlier, because the researchers were studying the differences in the boundaries between colors, rather than universal focal colors.

Grammar

Languages ​​differ in how their dictionaries classify the world, but also in different ways of combining individual meaningful units. These types of combination, according to B.Worf, unconsciously reflect and determine the idea that this language group has about reality. For example, English verbs take different forms according to temporary differences — past, present, and future. This obligatory indication of time corresponds to the notion of time as the endless line characteristic of most European cultures, as well as the measurement of time by means of hours and calendars.

In contrast, in the language of an Indian tribe Wintu (California), the verbs differ in the degree of certainty of the action they express. When it comes to an event known from hearsay, one verb is used, and when the speaker himself witnessed the event, the other is used, not one-root, but only synonymous. Thus, the witness of the crime will “hear” a shot using a word that is different from the one that the police, leading protocol will do.

Wharf and other authors who support his point of view tend to convince that language categories have an inevitable influence on a person’s thinking, but they are again judged on thinking on the basis of language concepts and categories. Language-independent data on cognitive processes are not offered. Thus, it is necessary to judge the processes of thinking on the basis of the general characteristics of culture, the meaning of which can be interpreted in different ways, or on the basis of any other linguistic data that are presumably related to cognitive processes.

Linguistic Universals

There are some assumptions about the presence of some coding experience that are common to all languages, despite their diversity. These assumptions constitute a hypothesis about linguistic universals.

The aforementioned Whorf hypothesis relates mainly to how language classifies reality, to which it points (a denominational value). At the same time, there is another aspect of the language, expressing the qualities of experience-feelings, images and attitudes, which are caused by words, that is, the connotative meaning of language.

The study of the universality of the connotative meaning of language is devoted to one of the most extensive studies between language and thinking. (Osgood, 1963, p.320). Systems of affective values ​​were investigated using a special measurement method, the semantic differential.

The main experimental technique is that the subject is offered a list of different nouns. Then a list of antonym determinants is given (adjectives: in the original, the experiment was conducted in English, in which adjectives act as determinants), for example: good-bad, hot-cold. The task of the subject was to evaluate each concept from the point of view of each pair of determinants over a seven-point system in a similar way: 1 means the highest estimate in favor of the left member of this pair of determinants (in the first example, good), and 7 the highest score in favor of the right member (in the case of the first example, a bad one), the remaining marks occupy an intermediate position.

As a result of factor studies conducted with American speakers who speak English, the following was established: the data obtained can be described in terms of three main factors, or measurements of the value: assessment factor (good-bad), factor forces (strong-weak) and activity factor (fast-slow). At the same time, a problem arose: is this semantic scheme typical only for English-speaking Americans, or is it inherent in all people, regardless of their culture and language.

To address this issue, linguists compiled a list of one hundred concepts familiar to all people of concepts chosen in terms of adequacy to all cultures in which this research was conducted. The list was translated into the appropriate languages, and then the experiment of prote-cal in these languages, with the people who spoke them.

Pairs of these determinants were clarified in each country when working with groups of students, on the basis of whose answers the grading scales were constructed. After this, new groups of subjects were asked to evaluate the aforementioned one hundred determinants on these scales.

The results of these studies showed that the structure of the connotative meaning of words is the same in all languages, while the connotative meanings of specific concepts in different cultures are different. These three dimensions — assessment, strength, and activity — characterize the judgments of the subjects in all the languages ​​studied, although in different cultures the separate concepts for these semantic factors are evaluated differently. The authors of the study are inclined to motivate such a similarity by the fact that the created scales register emotions associated with the af- fective nervous system, which is biologically the same for all people.

A large number of experiments were also carried out to study another phenomenon, known as phonetic symbolism. The correspondence between the sound form of a word and its meaning. This concept includes both so-called onomatopoeia and other types of linguistic universals.

Examples of phonetic symbolism can be cited: the tinkling of an ice cube in a glass (tinkle) and the thunder of a drum in an orchestra (boom). These word expressions with their sound help to convey some properties of their referents.

Эксперимент по установлению наличия фонетического символизма в разных языках прово-дился следующим образом.. 21 пара английских слов-антонимов (теплый-холодный, тяжелый-легкий) были переведены на китайский, чешский и хинди и предложены американским студентам, не знавшим этих языков. Испытуемым был сообщен признак, по которому слова отличались друг от друга и дано задание определить, что означает то или иное слово. В результате с определенной степенью вероятности студенты смогли различить значения понятий.

Например, когда студентам была дана пара антонимов тяжелый-легкий на китайском языке ( соответственно ch`ung и ch`ing) , то испытуемые были склонны правильно отвечать, что ch`ing -легкий.

Результаты аналогичных экспериментов, в которых использовались пары слов на различных языках и различные способы предьявления слов, говорят о том, что испытуемые связывают слова с их звучанием даже в тех случаях, когда в паре слово легкий было на китайском, а тяжелый на чешском.. (Klank, Huang, Johnson, 1971 p. 142 ). Еще один пример звукового ощуще- ния находим у лингвиста Чуковского. Когда ребенка спросили, кто такой Бардадым и кто такой Миклушечка (взят произвольный набор звуков), был получен ответ, что Миклушечка это кто-то '' маленький и хорошенький", а Бардадым- ''большой, злой и гремит". ( К. Чуковский. От двух до пяти. 1937,стр 211-212.)

Некоторые данные говорят о том, что между гласными звуками и значения- ми слов, указы-вающими на величину, имеется связь: было обнаружено, что и в китайском ,и в английском язы-ках высокие передгие гласные чаще встречаются в словах, выражающих малые размеры. Соответ-ственно, задние низкие гласные -в словах, выражающих большие размеры.

В целом, работы, посвященные семантическому дифференциалу, синестезии, метафоре и фонетическому символизму весьма убедительно свидетельствуют о том, что некоторые стороны опыта получают одинаковое выражение в различных языках и культурах, как бы они не отлича-лись друг от друга в иных отношениях.

Резюме

The above review of experimental data relating to the Whorf hypothesis calls into question any strong version of the hypothesis of the existence of linguistic relativity. However, despite the insufficiency of the relevant data, the complete denial of the presence of linguistic relativity is illogical. There are some reasons for leaving this question open.

Во-первых, следует обратить внимание на ограниченность эксперименталь- ных приемов, использованных при проверке гипотезы Уорфа. Не смотря на то, что для исследования лингвис-тической относительности на материале именно цветового восприятия имелись весьма серьезные основания, подобная стратегия отнюдь не была идеальной. Весьма вероятно, что влияние перцеп-тивного опыта в большой мере зависит от определенных ярко выраженных и неизменных свойств стимулов и мало чувствительно по отношению к разнообразию, вводимому языком.. здесь име-ются в виду такие явления, как, например, социальные роли : признаки, определяющие категории людей, устанавливаются не природой, а культурой- в отличии от критериев, определяющих цвета.

В сфере идеологии и духовной культуры поняти приобретают свое значение в большей мере бла-годаря тому, что они включены в словесные обьяснительные системы.. именно здесь язык может играть важнейшую роль в определении представлении о мире, оказывать влияние на процессы памяти и мышления человека, способствовать пониманию и непониманию других культур.

Во-вторых, демонстрация универсальности отношений между отдельными аспектами языка и познавательными процессами отнюдь не снимает проблемы межкультурных различий. В том, что в любой области человечес- кого опыта существуют как универсалии, так и различия (относи-тельности), не обязательно следует усматривать парадокс.. В ходе все возрастающего количества исследований взаимоотношений между языком и мышлением обнаруживается многообразие и сложность подобных взаимоотношений. Их понимание будет увеличиваться по мере того, как теоретические и межкуль- турные исследования будут раскрывать универсальные и частные ас-пекты этих разнообразных отношений.

В-третьих, хотя предположения Уорфа о влиянии определенных аспектов языка на познава-тельные процессы, в настоящее время существуют более перспективные пути для исследования этой классической проблемы. При исследовании экспериментов Брауна и Леннеберга, направлен-ных на выясне- ние связи между кодируемостью цветов и их запоминанием, можно отметить, что предполагаемое влияние языка проявляется только в процессе определенной вербальной деятель-ности испытуемого. Никто из исследова- телей не считает, что точность узнавания зависит от слов как статических носителей информации- было подчеркнуто то, что испытуемый делал со словами. Эти наблюдения привели к выводу, что для познавательных процессов могут иметь важное значение различия в использовании языка. В последнее время эти различия также стали объектом более углубленного изучения.

Summarizing, we can say that a language cannot be understood outside the functions that it performs as a means of human communication, depending on the social context in which it operates.