LANGUAGE AND WORLD VIEW & COGNITIVE PURPOSES

Submitted to Fulfil the Assignment of Psycholinguistics Subject

Lecturer :
Dr. Hj. Huriyah M.Pd

Arranged by 2nd Group :

1. Habib Bakhrun Rozaq (1808103205)
2. Jamaluddin Ramadhan (1808103196)

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING DEPARTMENT

TARBIYAH AND TEACHER TRAINING FACULTY

SYEKH NURJATI STATE INSTITUTE FOR ISLAMIC STUDIES

CIREBON

2020
 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

I. Background
Language it seems to be the most important thing for human life, since language took
over all the sectors of human life. Based on Finocchioro, (1984) noted about the language,
“Language is an abstract system. Verbal symbols that encourages all people in a culture or
other people who have mastered the culture system to communicate or interact “. As a matter
of fact, there are more than 6,500 languages all over the world, which mean that the
distinction of languages influenced towards human life. Along with languages and world
view, how do we know a language can be processed by the human? This research conducted
to answer several question related to the language and world view and cognitive processes.

II. Purposes of The Paper

1. Knowing what is language
2. Knowing how the language affect our world view
3. Knowing The Cognitive Definition
4. Knowing The Language Processing
5. Knowing The Language Producing
III. Problem Formulation
1. What is language?
2. How the language determines our world view?
3. What is the definition of Cognition in Linguistics?
4. How language can be process in human mind?
5. How language can be produce in human mind?
 CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION
I. Language and World View
Language can be such a large and interesting term that it's just words for certain people,
like me. Life is language, there is meaning of creation itself. Atoms, cells, DNA, and quanta
each have their own language for contact and therefore for life. Animal language, the
language of plants in or under the Light, the language of the body, the language of passion.
The meaning of human experience for certain people lies in language and language itself,
which makes us understand the universe as we know it.

a) Language and World views

Along the course of the history of linguistics, language has been widely defined by
different linguists. Some examples of these suggested definitions in historical order
appeared, Edward Sapir (1921) defined language as ―a purely human and non-instinctive
method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced
symbols. Bloch and Trager in 1942, added another definition based on ―a system of
arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group cooperates. Noam Chomsky
(1957) considered that language was ―a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in
length and constructed out of a finite set of elements. From these meanings we may
conclude that language is a human tool for the transmitting of thoughts, feelings and
desires through arbitrary voice signals, or sentence collections.
According to Eleanor Rosch (1974), research on the Dani tribe showed that despite
the lack of color labeling there was still a distinctive understanding of colours. But this
can happen refutation of the Whorf hypothesis is considered only for a limited aspect of
Worldview, taking physical view of the world only. Worldview is a much wider term than
you may imagine in studies such as Eleanor Rosch's, and there could be at least four
elements of the word 'worldview,' namely physical, social, cognitive, and ontological.
 Physical worldview
It's the way the entity looks to the real world, and the objects inside it. On the one
hand, physical worldview for a hilly area resident will differ dramatically from that of
a plain region resident, or that of a hot desert area will differ from that of a hot desert
area.
  Social worldview
It is the amount of common knowledge or understanding of social practices, habits,
systems, rules, customs, etc., and standards, parameters by which things are deemed
normal, appropriate, suitable, valid, etc.
 Ontological worldview
It is one's interpretation of the nature of the universal truth of universe, matter, life,
self, space , time, and so on, and is usually tacitly or implicitly held by the laity.
 Cognitive worldview
It is one process which deals with his / her conception of the operative 'act of cause'
and worldly affairs of the world. It can also be said to include one's conceptions of
epistemic problems, such as what is the true way of thinking, what are the causes,
agencies that influence the thought, etc.
b) Language affects our cultural world view

Language is very different from thought, so learning a language itself can be a

prerequisite and influence for one's cultural, social or world views. Humboldt held that
language embodies the spirit and national character of a people. The views of the following
theorists are of a more recent vintage, and would include Whorf and others.

Language is a guide to ‘social reality.’ Though language is not ordinarily thought of as of

essential interest to the students of social science, it powerfully conditions all our thinking
about social problems and processes. Human beings do not live in the objective world alone,
nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the
mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for society.
Not two languages are sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social
reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same
world with different labels attached.

Newtonian space, time, and matter are not intuitions. They are receiving from culture and
language. That is where Newton got them. (Benjamin Whorf, from Carroll, 1956, p. 153).
Based on Edward Sapir (1929, p. 209.) stated that a language, any language, has at its bottom
certain metaphysics which ascribe, consciously or unconsciously, some sort of structure to
this world. Meanwhile, Alfred Korzybski (1933, p. 89) noted that the Aristotelian type of
education (through language and its subject predicate form of representation) leads to the
humanly harmful, gross, macroscopic, brutalizing, biological, animalistic types of
orientations which are shown today to be humanly inadequate. These breed such ‘führers’ as
different Hitlers, Mussolinis, Stalins, etc., whether in political, financial, industrial, scientific,
medical, educational, or even publishing, etc., fields, fancying that they represent ‘all’ of the
human world. (Alfred Korzybski, 1933, p. xxi)

 Jackendoff differentiates three ways through which language helps human to think:

1) Linguistic communication, mainly based on the ―accumulation of collective

knowledge (Jackendoff, 1996: 27) 19

2) Making thought available for attention since ―language is the only modality of
consciousness that makes perceptible the relational form of thought and the abstract
elements of thought‖. (Jackendoff, 1996: 27)

3) The valuation of conscious precepts as ―language brings valuations of precepts to

awareness as independent elements, permitting them to be focused on and
questioned‖. (Jackendoff, 1996: 28)

However, this distinction is far from explaining how language helps us think, for three
main reasons:

1) Firstly, through ―animal research, brain imaging techniques, and studies of brain
damage, we know what many areas of the brain do as a whole‖;

2) Secondly, ―neurotransmitters affect brain function in a global way, which does not
help to know how information is stored in the brain‖. (Jackendoff, 1996: 3)

3) Thirdly, ―including neurons and small systems of neurons work, still the way how
neurons encode words of speech sounds is unknown, although they must do it
somehow‖.

Yet, at the moment, using a machine model is the most pragmatically helpful way to
learn how language makes us think, and how it determines the world view of speakers. This
is focused on looking at the brain like a machine, and acting as its applications. According to
Jackendoff, this comparison is one of the best methods to understand the brain at language
and thought-relevant stage of processing Cognitive science, combined with computational
theory, notes that knowledge of such events in the brain is never real, no matter how hard we
try. (Jackendoff, 1996: 4) He illustrates this principle with the example of Bregman (1990): in
the course of doing frequency analysis of sounds, we cannot capture our auditory system; we
only hear a tone. In this way, the fact that all peripheral sensory systems in the brain are
completely inaccessible to consciousness seems to be possible. (1996 Jackendoff: 4)

II. Cognitive Processes

a. Definitions
Psycholinguistics cannot be separated with cognitive term, since cognitive refers to the
mental process to acquiring information and comprehension which include cognitive
processes such as thinking, knowing, judging and problem solving. Based on Harely (2005)
asserted that psycholinguistics displays cognitive process that reflects the understanding and
development of language and the interaction between the cultural environment and these two
(p.13). Moreover, according to Miller & Emas (1983, cited in Jodai, H. 2011)
Psycholinguistics explores the cognitive processes that enable grammatical and meaningful
sentences to be constructed through vocabulary and grammar stricter and even the processes
that enable to understanding of utterances, phrases, texts and so on (p. 3). Hence, the
cognitive processes is seems to be a central point in the psycholinguistics.

b. Language Processing
The human being has a sense or even property to process an information or particularly
language that acquire from the daily communication or hearing. Furthermore, after gaining a
language, the human brain automatically process the information. Cowles. W. H. (2011)
divided four point towards the language processes:
 Top-Down Versus Bottom-Up Processing
Top-down and bottom-up is a manner in processing a language, both top-down and
bottom-up is juxtaposed to distinguish the language process that has a different characteristic
in each process. In bottom-up process, only information from the input is considered
processing and fully affected by its stimulus. In other word, bottom-up processing model only
rely on the sounds to determine the language itself. Meanwhile, top-down processing model
not only use sound to determine language, yet the knowledge and experiences can be affect in
deciding the language or even linguistic identity. Therefore, both top-down and bottom-up
processes are important. The key point here is whether and to what extent information from
later or higher processes can influence early or lower processes. This is a recurring theme
because it is applicable not only to how we process sounds, but also to how we build and
interpret sentence structures.
 Serial Versus Parallel Processing
This second issue (also related to the flow of information) is whether
individual language-based processes need to complete before further processing
can proceed, or wheteher processes related to the same information can overlap.
Each phase must be completed in “serial processing” before the next can begin.
Whereas in “parallel processing”, steps may overlap so that one process may not
be completely finished before the next one begins.
 Automatic Versus Controlled Processing
Another key issue is whether a particular process is automatic or controlled.
Automatic processes are those that do not tax resources very much. In general,
they tend to be unintentional, uncontrollable, efficient, and fast. One commonly
cited example of an automatic process is our ability to roughly estimate the
frequency of events. Meanwhile, controlled processes, in contrast, are those that
do require more resources and are slower and can be subject to strategic effects.
Building up the structure of a sentence is also largely a controlled process.
 Modularity
The final key theme is the issue of modularity. This actually comes in two
flavors: first, there is the degree to which individual processes within language
processing are distinct and isolated from each other and second, there is the degree
to which language as a system is distinct and isolated from other cognitive
systems. modular processes are specific to a particular domain (they are not
spread across multiple areas), automatic, fast, and not affected by feedback from
other processes.

c. Production Of Language
As matter a fact, language production processes it’s completely different from cognitive
processes over all point of view. However, meanwhile human brain normally identifies the
words immediately and unconsciously particularly in their native language, certain words
requires an intention to speak and to generate more than five times longer to generate than to
identify. In other words, native language or first language is not completely requires more
effoert to produce it, since human brain has a certain experiences to produce it. Based on
Levelt (1989, As cited in Traxler, M. & Gernsbacher, M. A. 2011) Language production is
logically divided into three major steps: deciding what to express (conceptualization),
determining how to express it (formulation), and expressing it (articulation). Nonetheless,
language production generally discuss about how do people generate or establish words and
sentences.

CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION
Language has been widely defined by different linguists. Some examples of these
suggested definitions in historical order appeared, Edward Sapir (1921) defined language as
―a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires
by means of voluntarily produced symbols. Moreover, Human beings do not live in the
objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but
are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of
expression for society.
Based on Harely (2005) asserted that psycholinguistics displays cognitive process that
reflects the understanding and development of language and the interaction between the
cultural environment and these two (p.13). Cowles. W. H. (2011) divided four point towards
the language processes: Top-Down Versus Bottom-Up Processing, Serial Versus Parallel
Processing, Automatic Versus Controlled Processing, Modularity.

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