Script Effects as the Hidden Drive of the Mind, Cognition, and Culture

Script Effects as the Hidden Drive of the Mind, Cognition, and Culture
Author: Hye K. Pae
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2020-10-14
Genre: Education
ISBN: 3030551520

This open access volume reveals the hidden power of the script we read in and how it shapes and drives our minds, ways of thinking, and cultures. Expanding on the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis (i.e., the idea that language affects the way we think), this volume proposes the “Script Relativity Hypothesis” (i.e., the idea that the script in which we read affects the way we think) by offering a unique perspective on the effect of script (alphabets, morphosyllabaries, or multi-scripts) on our attention, perception, and problem-solving. Once we become literate, fundamental changes occur in our brain circuitry to accommodate the new demand for resources. The powerful effects of literacy have been demonstrated by research on literate versus illiterate individuals, as well as cross-scriptal transfer, indicating that literate brain networks function differently, depending on the script being read. This book identifies the locus of differences between the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans, and between the East and the West, as the neural underpinnings of literacy. To support the “Script Relativity Hypothesis”, it reviews a vast corpus of empirical studies, including anthropological accounts of human civilization, social psychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, applied linguistics, second language studies, and cross-cultural communication. It also discusses the impact of reading from screens in the digital age, as well as the impact of bi-script or multi-script use, which is a growing trend around the globe. As a result, our minds, ways of thinking, and cultures are now growing closer together, not farther apart.

Rhetorical Implications of Linguistic Relativity

Rhetorical Implications of Linguistic Relativity
Author: Kristopher H. Kowal
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
Total Pages: 338
Release: 1997
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN:

Popular readings of Benjamin Lee Whorf's «principle of linguistic relativity» focus almost exclusively on the controversial notion that language constrains or determines thought. Recent scholarship has only begun to assess the creative epistemological and pragmatic dimensions of Whorf's theory of language, and their compatibility with the ideas of his contemporaries in rhetoric, philosophy, and psychology. This book provides a new reading of Whorf which situates his writings among those of Bakhtin, Vygotsky, and Wittgenstein. Exploring the ramifications of linguistic relativity for rhetorical theory, the philosophy of language, and interlingual discourse analysis, the author re-accentuates Whorf's belief in the need to overcome linguacentrism and ethnocentrism through an «enlightened multilingual awareness».

Linguistic Relativity in SLA

Linguistic Relativity in SLA
Author: Zhaohong Han
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2010
Genre: Education
ISBN: 184769277X

Crosslinguistic influence is an established area of second language research, and as such, it has been subject to extensive scrutiny. Although the field has come a long way in understanding its general character, many issues still remain a conundrum, for example, why does transfer appear selective, and why does transfer never seem to go away for certain linguistic elements? Unlike most existing studies, which have focused on transfer at the surface form level, the present volume examines the relationship between thought and language, in particular thought as shaped by first language development and use, and its interaction with second language use. The chapters in this collection conceptually explore and empirically investigate the relevance of Slobin's thinking-for-speaking hypothesis to adult second language acquisition, offering compelling and enlightening evidence of the fundamental nature of crosslinguistic influence in adult second language acquisition "This is a landmark publication - the first to concertedly address the implications for SLA of Slobin's thinking-for-speaking hypothesis. Do processes of conceptualisation that L1s predispose speakers to affect their L2 production, and if so in what ways? Can we `re-think' for L2 speaking, and what cognitive abilities enable this? The research issues this book raises are fundamentally important for SLA theory and pedagogy alike." Peter Robinson, Professor of Linguistics and SLA, Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan "Language affects how we think. Slobin's (1996) thinking-for-speaking hypothesis concerns the ways that native language directs speakers' attention to pick those characteristics of events that are readily encodable therein. In this impressive collection, Han and Cadierno marshal strong support for effects of native language upon second language use, i.e. for `rethinking-for-speaking'. A must-read for anybody interested in linguistic relativity and transfer in SLA." Nick Ellis, Professor of Psychology, University of Michigan, USA

The Cambridge Handbook of Psycholinguistics

The Cambridge Handbook of Psycholinguistics
Author: Michael Spivey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 1297
Release: 2012-08-20
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1139536141

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.

Handbook of Psycholinguistics

Handbook of Psycholinguistics
Author: Matthew Traxler
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 1197
Release: 2011-04-28
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0080466419

With Psycholinguistics in its fifth decade of existence, the second edition of the Handbook of Psycholinguistics represents a comprehensive survey of psycholinguistic theory, research and methodology, with special emphasis on the very best empirical research conducted in the past decade. Thirty leading experts have been brought together to present the reader with both broad and detailed current issues in Language Production, Comprehension and Development. The handbook is an indispensible single-source guide for professional researchers, graduate students, advanced undergraduates, university and college teachers, and other professionals in the fields of psycholinguistics, language comprehension, reading, neuropsychology of language, linguistics, language development, and computational modeling of language. It will also be a general reference for those in neighboring fields such as cognitive and developmental psychology and education. - Provides a complete account of psycholinguistic theory, research, and methodology - 30 of the field's foremost experts have contributed to this edition - An invaluable single-source reference

Psycholinguistics

Psycholinguistics
Author: Joseph F. Kess
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 398
Release: 1992-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027277486

This textbook is designed to serve as an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of psycholinguistics. It is directed at filling the reading needs of courses in departments of linguistics and of psychology, presenting an integrated overview of the ways in which both disciplines have investigated the learning, production, comprehension, storage and recall of natural languages. Also detailed are those research topics that have captured the interests of psycholinguists over the past few decades. Some current topics included are modularity vs interactionism, the role of parsing strategies in sentence comprehension, and accessing the mental lexicon in word recognition. Earlier topics that have attracted considerable energy not so long ago, such as sound symbolism and linguistic relativity, are also investigated in some detail. Psycholinguistics is an enquiry into the psychology of language, but the facts of language are what generate theories about why language is learned, produced and processed the way it is. Thus there is a wide array of examples from the languages of the world, intended to provide a feeling for what the nature and range of human language are like.

Memory, Language, and Bilingualism

Memory, Language, and Bilingualism
Author: Jeanette Altarriba
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 387
Release: 2013
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1107008905

A comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to the study of memory, language and cognitive processing across various populations of bilingual speakers.

A History of Psycholinguistics

A History of Psycholinguistics
Author: Willem Levelt
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 673
Release: 2013
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0199653666

How do we manage to speak and understand language? How do children acquire these skills and how does the brain support them? This book provides a fascinating personal history of the men and women whose intelligence, brilliant insights, fads, fallacies, cooperations, and rivalries created the discipline we call psycholinguistics.

Social and Cognitive Approaches to Interpersonal Communication

Social and Cognitive Approaches to Interpersonal Communication
Author: Susan R. Fussell
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2014-02-25
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1317778979

Historically, the social aspects of language use have been considered the domain of social psychology, while the underlying psycholinguistic mechanisms have been the purview of cognitive psychology. Recently, it has become increasingly clear that these two dimensions are highly interrelated: cognitive mechanisms underlying speech production and comprehension interact with social psychological factors, such as beliefs about one's interlocutors and politeness norms, and with the dynamics of the conversation itself, to produce shared meaning. This realization has led to an exciting body of research integrating the social and cognitive dimensions which has greatly increased our understanding of human language use. Each chapter in this volume demonstrates how the theoretical approaches and research methods of social and cognitive psychology can be successfully interwoven to provide insight into one or more fundamental questions about the process of interpersonal communication. The topics under investigation include the nature and role of speaker intentions in the communicative process, the production and comprehension of indirect speech and figurative language, perspective-taking and conversational collaboration, and the relationships between language, cognition, culture, and social interaction. The book will be of interest to all those who study interpersonal language use: social and cognitive psychologists, theoretical and applied linguists, and communication researchers.