Lecture 3

Psychological Evidence for the Language System.

3.1. INTRODUCTION
The current section presents information about the psychological evidence for
the language system by focusing on the exploration of what cognitive psychology is
and its link with linguistics. It will also provide an insight into the sources of evidence
on the nature of the language system and on the contributions of spontaneous speech
errors as sources of evidence on the nature of language and language behaviour.

3.2. COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology that studies the internal
mental processes of humans including how people perceive, remember, think, speak
and solve problems (Feist and Rosenberg, 2009). It is related to other disciplines
including neuroscience, philosophy and linguistics. As the focus of cognitive
psychology is placed on how people acquire, process and store information, this
branch of psychology involves the study of a wide range of psychological phenomena.
“This range includes not only perception, learning, memory, and thinking but also
seemingly less cognitively oriented phenomena, such as emotion and motivation.”
[Sternberg and Mio, 2008: 29].
One of the areas of study in cognitive psychology is related to investigating the
relationship between language and mind. A key question that researches ask in this
respect is: “How does using any language in general and using a particular language
influence human thought?”. Different languages around the world have different
lexicons which comprise of words which reflect the cultural and physic environments
where those languages develop and are used. For example, Sternberg and Mio (2008)
state that Nomadic Arabs have more than 20 words for camels while the Garo of Burma
distinguish among different varieties of rice, which means that those people
conceptualise camels and rice in a different way from other people who do not belong
to their cultural groups. The same could be said about the Chinese who have different
calligraphic symbols about uncooked and cooked rice:
(uncooked rice) (cooked rice)

But does this mean that those people think in a different way from us? And do
they think in a different way than we do respectively about camels and rice? Before
providing an answer to those questions, it is necessary to point out that it is not only
the lexicon upon which languages differ, it is also the syntactic structure that makes
languages different. Differences in terms of the syntactic features of languages can be
found in terms of:
 the order of arrangement of the subject, verb and object in declarative
sentences and in questions;
  the grammatical inflections and other markers that are used within the
sentence by the speakers of a particular language.
For example in English when we describe past actions, we put the inflection –
ed at the end of the regular verb or use an irregular verb form – e.g. work + -ed ->
worked; come – came. In Bulgarian and German when we describe a past action the
inflection we use indicates whether the agent of the action was singular or plural and
whether it is referred to the first, second or third person:
Bulgarian language German language
1st person видях machte

Singular 2nd person видя machtest

3rd person видя machte
1st person видяхме machten

Plural 2nd person видяхте machtet

3rd person видяха machten

Table 3.1: Past tense forms in contemporary Bulgarian and German languages

Here the questions that arise are: Do the differences in syntactic structures
influence the speakers of a particular language to think in a specific way about things
because of the language they use?

3.2.1. Linguistic relativity

The concept that could be used to give an answer to those questions is
linguistic relativity. Linguistics relativity is the idea that people who speak different
languages “have different cognitive systems and that these different cognitive systems
influence the way in which people speaking the different languages think about the
world” [Sternberg and Mio, 2008: 388].
The linguistic relativity hypothesis is referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
under the names of its proponents: Edward Sapir (1941 – 1964) and Benjamin Lee
Whorf (1897 – 1941). This hypothesis has two versions:
 the strong version – language determines thought and speakers of
different languages will think and behave differently depending on the
language they use;
 the weak hypothesis – linguistic categories influence peoples’ way of
thinking and some kinds of human non-linguistic behaviour.
The effects of differences in linguistic categorisation on cognition can be proved
by data from experiments carried out in the 1980s. For example Elizabeth F. Loftus
and John C. Palmer (1974) conducted an experiment with 45 students from the
University of Washington, USA who were each shown seven film clips (from 5 to 30
seconds) of traffic accidents. After each clip the students were then asked to write a
short description of the accident they had just seen. In their descriptions they had to
provide answers to five questions focusing on the speed of the vehicles. The basic
question was: “About how fast were the cars going when they _____ into each other?”.
In the gap in each of the five questions was used a different verb: smashed, collided,
bumped, hit, contacted.
When the students used the word smashed in their answers, they rated the
speed higher than in the other cases when some of the rest of the words were used.
The idea is that the connotation of the word smash for the students entails high speed.
When the same group of students were asked one week later whether they had seen
broken glass in the video clips, those of them who had been questioned with the word
smash said “yes” much more frequently than the other participants. This suggests that
the participants in the experiments easily connected the word smashed and broken
glass as indicative of severe accidents. This suggests that human thinking and memory
can be influenced by the use of language.
Another experiment was carried by John M. Darley, Sam Glucksberg and
Ronald A. Kinchla (1991) who asked the participants to make their own descriptions of
an observed event, a particular colour or a face they had seen. The results from the
experiments showed that when people were asked to write a description of an eye-
witnessed event, an observed face or a colour, they couldn’t provide accurate
descriptions. More interestingly, even when the participants were asked to draw the
figures they had been shown earlier, the drawings did not correspond to the original
picture. They corresponded closely to the word used to describe the things seen on
the pictures (Fig. 3.1)

Reproduced Verbal label Original figure Verbal list Reproduced

figure figure

Bottle Stirrup

Crescent moon Letter C

Eyeglasses Dumbbells

Fig. 1. 1. Drawings of original figures [from Sternberg and Mio, 2008: 391]

So as it comes clear from the above presented data from experiments, the
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has some relevance to our everyday life.

3.2.2. Linguistic universals

A common support for the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis are the results from a study
about the perception of colours across languages. According to this hypothesis if a
language categorises colour in a different way from another language, then the people
who speak that language should perceive colours differently. The study was carried
out in the 1970s by Berlin and Kay (1969) and compared the perception of colour in
English with that of other languages. Berlin and Kay found out that all the 98 languages
they surveyed contain 11 colour words that are used to denote the basic colours: red,
orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, brown, grey, black and white. This set of
eleven colours forms a linguistic universal – a characteristic pattern that can be found
in all languages spoken by people of various cultures.
In their study the two researchers also established that the languages ranged
from using all the eleven words for colours (e.g. English, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese,
Hebrew, African etc.) to using only two words for colours – black and white (e.g. the
languages spoken in New Guinea, Congo and South India). They have also
established that the names of colours form a hierarchy of five levels:

Table 3.2. Colour levels across languages

Colours

Level 1 black, white

Level 2 black, white red

Level 3 black, white red yellow, green, blue

Level 4 black, white red yellow, green, blue brown

Level 5 black, white red yellow, green, blue brown purple, pink, orange,
grey

This suggests that though different languages use different words for naming
colours, colour naming across languages is governed by a systematic pattern.
An interesting fact from a research on the Navaho language spoken by
American Indians illustrates the importance of linguistic relativity. In the Navaho
language the choice of a verb depends on the shape of the object engaged in the
action which is quite different from the way Bulgarian, English, German, French,
Russian and other languages function. Linguists and psychologists, therefore, ask
themselves: “Does the use of different verb forms for different shapes influence the
way in which the people speaking the Navaho language perceive and organize
information?”. No one can answer that question still.

3.3. ERRORS
 The discussion about the psychological evidence of language systems carried
above was based on the idea that languages were used correctly. One area of interest
to linguists and cognitive psychologists is how language is used incorrectly.
In general errors have to do with the three levels: phonological, grammatical and
semantic. Such spontaneously occurring errors are not chaotic. They tell us about the
way we plan and process sentences, about the systematic nature of language and how
this system breaks down to smaller units.
Michael Garman (1990) distinguishes the following types of errors:
a) Slips of the tongue – all types of errors manifested in speech production;
b) Slips of the pen:
 letter-production errors (writing -the as an ending in with);
 grammatical and meaning-based errors – e.g. leaving words out
or writing wrong words;
c) Slips of the ear – when we start to hear a particular sequence, and then
realize that we have misperceived in some way – e.g. perceiving the
ambulance at the beginning of a sentence instead of the yam balanced
delicately on the top;
d) Slips of the eye – when we think we have seen a word on a page that,
on closer inspection, turns out not to be there.
In this section we will examine in details the first type of errors – Slips of the
tongue.

3.3.1. Slips of the tongue

Slips of the tongue occur in those cases when what we think and mean to say
does not correspond to what we actually say.
Freudian psychoanalysts call the slips of the tongue and slips of the pen
Freudian slips as according to them the slips of the tongue reflect suppressed
emotions, thought or inner conflicts. For example:
 in one of his speeches the former President of the United States of
America – George Bush said: “I’d like to spank all teachers!” instead of
“I’d like to thank all teachers!”.
 In a conversation when asked the question “Would you like bread and
butter?” the other person answers: “Yes, bed and butter.”
 In a conversation between business competitors – “I am glad to beat you”
instead of “I’m glad to meet you”.
The slips of the tongue may be a result of absent-mindedness or of intrusion of
other thoughts or stimuli from the environment. Quite frequently when a slip of the
tongue is made, the speaker is unaware of what he/she has said as in his / her mind
the idea is right, but the verbal expression is wrong.
There is a large variety of slips of the tongue that people make in their everyday
speech. Garman (1990) proposes the following classification:
1. Articulatory errors – they affect sounds within a phrase or a sentence.
a) Anticipatory – when the following word affects the preceding
word.
e.g. … thir/θ/ and fourth …(for third)
It’s the /g/olly green giant (for jolly) [Garman, 1990:
153]
an expiring expression (for an inspiring expression)
b) Persevatory – when a word affects the next word in a phrase or
a sentence.
e.g. a clear p/l/iece …(for a clear piece)
play a fat fee (for pay a flat fee) [Garman,
1990: 153]
We sat down a bounteous beast (for bounteous feast) [Sternberg and Mio, 2008:
400]

c) Spoonerisms – the initial sounds of two words are reversed and

make two entirely different words. This type of errors is named
after the Reverend William Spooner (1844 – 1930) who was
famous for them. Some of his famous slips are*:
e.g. “You have hissed all my mystery lectures.” for “You have missed all my history
lectures.”
“Is the bean dizzy?” for “Is the Dean busy?”
“Go and shake a tower” for “Go and take a shower”
“Such Bulgarians should be vanished” for “Such vulgarians should be banished”
“It is kisstomary to cuss the bride” for “It is customary to kiss the bride”

Research data shows that most exchange elements are consonants; most are
located in syllable initial positions; most are found in stressed syllables.

2. Grammatical errors – errors involving everything except articulatory

elements, e.g. morphemes, words, phrasal constituents and clause patterns. Types:
 Exchange errors – involve the transposition of elements that are
not adjacent.
e.g. I got into this guy with a discussion. for I got into a discussion with this guy.
Once I stop I cannot start. for Once I start I cannot stop. [Garman, 1990:
157]
flutterby for butterfly [Sternberg and Mio, 2008:
400]
 Stranding exchanges – affect affixes.
e.g. I thought the park was truck#ed. for I thought the truck was parked.
You have to square it face#ly. for You have to face it squarely. [Garman, 1990:
158]

 Shifts – transposition of elements that are adjacent before and

after the transposition. They follow the general form: X – A – B –
Y.

*
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Archibald_Spooner - [04-02-2011]
e.g. Type 1: X – B – A – Y (exchange) : If you can’t figure what that out is.

Type 2: X - ___ B – A – Y (right shift): Who did you think else will come?

Type 3: X – B – A - ___ - Y (left shift): They’d tell me to who go to see.

[Garman, 1990: 159]

 Blends – words formed from two or more other words. These

types of slips of the tongue could be observed in phrases or in
separate words.
e.g In phrases:
A: How much do you want?
B: As lot … as much as possible. (As much as possible + A lot);

How many of there are you? (of you are there + are there of you)
In words:
e.g. gone mild (mad + wild) that’s torrible (terrible + horrible)
webinar (web + seminar) smog (smoke + fog)
enlicit your support (enlist + elicit) brunch (breakfast + lunch)
 Substitutions – one language element is substituted with
another. These errors occur on two levels:
 semantically motivated (related to meaning)
e.g. He rode his bike to school tomorrow (yesterday);
Ask me whether … (Tell)
You go and wash your hair (brush) [Garman, 1990:
162]
It is possible that semantic exchange could be based on synonymy (same
meaning) or hyponymy (included meaning):
e.g. Is anyone using this seat? (chair) What a lovely rose! (flower)
[Garman, 1990: 162]
 form motivated (related to the form of the words):
e.g. because I’ve got an apartment (appointment) now
No – I’m amphibian (ambidextrous)
it doesn’t sympathise (synthesize) it [Garman,
1990: 161]
 The examples of errors result of slips of the tongue shows that they may involve
verbal errors in phonemes, morphemes or larger units of language. They may also
involve substitution, deletion, insertion, perseveration, reversals and anticipation.

3.4. CONCLUSION
In this section we have made an attempt to describe the link between language
and thought by giving evidence of the essential role of culture on the formation of
human thinking. Key issues that have been discussed are linguistic relativity and
linguistic universals and language errors that a result of subconscious use of the
language. No single explanation, however, can explain the link between language and
thought.

QUESTIONS
1. How does language affect the way we think?
2. Why are researchers interested in linguistic relativity? What does it tell us about the
link between language and thought?
3. Why are researchers interested in the number of colour words used by different
cultures?
4. Why are language errors a valuable source for both cognitive psychologists and
researchers? Can you give examples of slips of the tongue you have made?
5. As a future teacher of English to young learners what kinds of things would you need
to know about your pupils to determine how much to emphasize on the
development of phonology, vocabulary and grammar in your instruction?

WORKSHEETS
Worksheet 1 – Understanding Language
Worksheet 2 – Cognitive Organization of Language