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Humboldt-Universitt zu Berlin
Sommersemester 2010
Institut fr Anglistik/Amerikanistik
BA-Modul 9: English Language in Social and Cultural Context
Dozent/in:
Dr. phil. Holden Hrtl
Are language and thought interdependent to the extent that only
language makes intelligent thought possible? And what role does
learning a foreign language play in the development of the young
mind?
Verfasser: Anne-Katrin Clemens
Matrikelnr.: 528905
Kontakt: [email protected]
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List of contents:
I. List of contentsII. Paper: Are language and thought interdependent to the extent
that only language makes intelligent thought possible?
1. What is intelligence?2. What sets us apart from other animals?3. Is language the key to intelligence or vice versa?4. Foreign Language Learning and the Effect of Bilingualism5. Conclusion
III. BibliographyIV. Works citedV. Eigenstndigkeitserklrung
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Are language and thought interdependent to the extent that only language makes
intelligent thought possible? And what role does learning a foreign language play in the
development of the young mind?
Anne-Katrin Clemens
Abstract
Learning a foreign language does not seem to affect semantic representations in the
first language. But does it change cognition in any way? We do know that the brain
accommodates a foreign language purely anatomically up to the age of twelve and we know
that this heightened flexibility in our neurological pathways allows for more flexible
combining of core-knowledge systems, thus giving an advantage in other cognitive areas.
What we do not know is if it actually changes our perception of the world.
Human intelligence, without a doubt, surpasses that of other creatures known to
mankind. We are also the only species known to possess highly developed language. These
two facts seem to suggest that there is a relation between language and intelligence. The
question is whether or not language and intelligence are interdependent to the extent that
only language makes intelligent thought possible. In the course of this paper I will answer
that question and show that, even though it is not the sole factor, language still plays an
important role for intelligent thought. In explaining that I will also show the effects that
learning a foreign language has on the development of the young mind.
1. What is intelligence?In order to explain the role language plays for the development of intelligent thought,
it is important to understand the basic concept of intelligence. Spearman (1927) defines
intelligence as the total mental energy at an individuals command and operating through
the channel of specific ability. These abilities have been identified quite clearly by Guilford
(1959) as cognition, memory, convergent thinking, divergent thinking and evaluation
(Sandel, 4). According to Guilford, these five abilities are relatively independent from each
other and can be developed varyingly strong, a theory that stands in direct contrast to
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Piagets (1926) earlier theory that intellectual development is a process in which each stage
or level builds upon the previous level (Sandel, 5). The probably most widely accepted theory
is that of Jensen (1969) that intelligence, regardless of the specific abilities that have been
coined, is a genetic potential and that the environment, which according to Jensen acts as a
threshold variable that can keep a child from exploiting its full potential, but can never
push him above said potential. Yet he recognizes the specific abilities and suggests that
developing them aids the child in performing up to his genetic potential (Sandel, 6).
2. What sets us apart from other animals?If we accept that intelligence is a genetic potential and know that the differences
between humans and our closest living relatives, the chimps, is less than 10% of our genetic
material, and with that ten times smaller than that between mice and rats (Lovgren, 2005),
we have to ask ourselves what exactly it is that sets us apart from other animals.
In her paper What makes us smart? Core Knowledge and Natural Language, Spelke
describes several studies that have been conducted in order to find that certain difference.
Spelkes first assumption was that whatever is unique to human cognition depends on
unique features of our early-developing, core-knowledge systems, like representation of
objects, navigation through spatial layouts or number sense (Spelke, 278). She refers to an
experiment conducted by Wynn in 1992, which I will refer to as the hand puppet
experiment.
5-month-old infants were shown a stage
with one single puppet, which was then
hidden behind a screen. After that a second
puppet was placed behind the screen, the
action clearly visible to the infants. When
the screen was lowered either one or two
puppets were revealed. The time the infants
spent looking at the display after the screen
was lowered was measured and gave
information about whether or not the
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infants were able to represent the two puppets in their minds. In the case of failure, they
would have spent more time looking at the display showing two puppets, as this would have
been new information. In the case of success, however, they would have spent more time
looking at the display with only one puppet as they would have been able to represent the
hidden puppet and the addition of the second puppet in their mind without ever having seen
both of them together. The results of this experiment showed that the 5-month-old infants
were indeed able to represent the puppets in their minds.
An analogical experiment was
conducted by Regolin and
Vallortigara in 1995 with newly
hatched chicks. The chicks spent their
first day with a center-occluded
object, in this case a triangle, and
were thus imprinted on this object.
On their second day they were placed
in a new cage and faced with two
objects, one being the full object and
the other being the two visible ends of the occluded objects with a visible gap between
them. In all cases the chicks approached the full object without gap making it clear that they
were able to represent the whole object without having seen it before (Spelke, 283 f.).
In other experiments, like natural geometry or number sense tasks, conducted to find
differences between human infants and animals, results showed that there is no
fundamental difference between human and nonhuman animal cognition. It is clear that
even though humans do have early-developing, core-knowledge systems that are part of our
intelligence, they are obviously not what sets us apart from other animals.
Since core-knowledge systems do not seem to be the key to human intelligence,
Spelke suggests that it is our uniquely human combinatorial capacities that make the
difference. Four of the main features of core-knowledge systems are that they are domain
specific, task specific, encapsulated and isolated. With growing age, however, humans are
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able to combine these core-knowledge systems. Spelke proposes that this combinatorial
capacity has none of the limits that the core-knowledge systems have and therefore allows
us to combine flexibly all other abilities we share with other animals. Spelke calls this new
capacity the natural language and says that the cognitive endowment that gives rise to it
is indeed unique to humans: the human language faculty (Spelke, 291).
She explains this with an experiment carried out by Hermer and herself in 1994.
In a reorientation experiment by Cheng in 1986, it was proven that rats were able to reorient
themselves in accord with the shape of the room or, as was shown in earlier tests, in accord
with the colours of the walls, but never in accord with both features combined.
In 1994, Hermer and Spelke tested this in 1,5-2-year-old children and the result was the
same as in Chengs rat-reorientation experiment. Even though the children succeeded in
tests involving colour but not geometrical shape, they failed to combine the information of
the differently coloured walls with the shape of the rectangular room. Obviously, children,
just as animals, lack the ability to combine different information flexibly, an ability which is
developed in humans with growing age (Spelke, 293).
In this regard, Spelke mentions that a developmental research by Hermer-Vasquez,
Moffett, and Munkholm in 2001 showed that the development of more flexible navigation
seems to be closely connected to the beginning of spatial language. Both, children and
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animals, possess the core systems for representing geometric information and colour
information, but it only the child who will later on learn the linguistic labels for these
information. Information like left of the blue wall (Spelke, 296) cannot be formulated
without the use of language and because it crosscuts the childs encapsulated core
domains (Spelke, 296) it seems that language is the crucial factor in flexibly and speedily
combining information from different core systems (Spelke, 297).
3. Is language the key to intelligence or vice versa?It seems apparent that language is indeed the key to human intelligence but it raises
the issue of why no other animal has developed language so far. Is it really language that is
the key to human intelligence or has human intelligence rather been the key factor in
evolving language, making it nothing more than a mere addition to our unique intelligence?
David Premack (2004) devotes his article Is Language the Key to Human
Intelligence? to this question. He explains the faculties that underlie the evolution of
language. One of those faculties is the capacity to acquire recursive and/or nonrecursive
grammar, which humans possess as well as chimps and monkey. The difference is that while
humans can easily learn both, chimps and monkeys only learn nonrecursive grammar. That
does not give an answer, though, as to why monkeys and chimps have never evolved
nonrecursive language. The answer to that problem is that evolving language takes more
than the capacity of recursion.
Premack sees the main abilities that helped evolve language or are necessary to do so in
voluntary control of the sensory-motor system, imitation, teaching, theory of mind and the
capacity to acquire recursive
and/or nonrecursive grammar.
We already know that neither
monkeys nor chimpanzees are
able of recursion, neither in
grammar nor in theory of mind.
So lets start with the voluntary
control of the sensory-motor
systems, meaning vocalization,
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facial expressions and hands. Humans usually have control of all of these systems and we
use all of them to communicate. Chimps and monkeys only have control over their hands;
vocalization and facial expressions are non-voluntary, reflexive. Both are important for
highly-developed language. But even if we accept that vocalization is not absolutely
necessary, as sign language has no need of it, the lack of control over facial expressions is an
important factor since they play important linguistic roles in signing. Why then did animals
never evolve nonrecursive, hands-only language?
David Premack asks two questions in this regard: Could language evolve in a species
in which the young cannot imitate the action of the speaker? and Could a species that
does not teach evolve language? (318)
The answers are simple enough. In order to evolve language for communication
and for what other reason would we need it? both skills are necessary. Premack calls the
first skill the second level of imitation (318), where the motor actions of the model are
imitated by another individual. A highly challenging task as the individual must form a
mental representation of the visually perceived action and produce and action conforming
to the representation (318). Animals are not able to do that, with the exception of chimps
under human training. They do not, however, voluntarily imitate motor actions. Nothing that
is not imitated can be passed on to other individuals, easy enough.
Teaching is even more challenging. Not only has one individual to imitate anothers
motor actions, moreover the model has to supervise and, if necessary, correct the copied
action. No animal is known to supervise let alone correct imitations of their young. If we
consider how long it takes chimps under these conditions to learn how to crack nuts with a
rock, 10 years, it is unimaginable how long it would take them to learn communicative
language, even if they had all other means necessary at hand (318-19).
Judging from this information it seems that not language makes us intelligent, but
that it is rather our intelligence that renders language possible. Premack seizes on this idea
and suggests that it is not language alone that makes us intelligent, but that it is our
flexibility. He states that all the specialties that animals have mastered can be duplicated and
even mostly surpassed by humans, because we are flexible. Animals are not. [Each] of these
species is imprisoned by its adaptation; none can duplicate the achievement of the other
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(319). For him recursive language is the key to this flexibility that makes humans so unique,
because it enables us to recombine mental elements, enables us to represent
representations. Or in Premacks words: Chimpanzees can represent what they perceive,
whereas humans can represent what they imagine. (329). By being able to do this, humans
are able to [produce] endless solutions to the problems confronted by living creatures
(320), much like evolution does, but much faster and much more economic. Did evolution,
in producing human intelligence, outstrip itself? (320) Premack proposes that it did, by
enabling us to evolve recursive language and thus master and surpass what evolution can
do.
4. Foreign Language Learning & the Effect of BilingualismEven though Premack, in contrast to Spelke, denies that language is the keyto human
intelligence, he accepts that it is indeed one key factor. If we consider that we also have ask
for the effects that learning a foreign language or being raised bilingual would have on our
intelligence. According to Spelke, it would heighten our intelligence directly. According to
Premack, it would make us even more flexible and thus heighten our intelligence indirectly.
But it is true? Can learning a foreign language enhance our achievements in other areas?
In 2007, there has been an outcry that the results of studies showing that there is a relation
between bilingualism and intelligence are overblown and that the superiority in cognitive
function doesnt stem from bilingualism, but rather from a high SES advantage. Chathams
argument, based on Morton and Harper (2007): bilingual children may be likely to come
from wealthier families than monolingual children, because the studies he refers to are
predominantly from Canada and he suggests that wealthier families are more likely to be or
raise their children bilingual. Chathams blog post caused a lot of discussion, mainly about
where he gets the idea that it is the wealthier families that are multilingual, rather than
families with migration background that are proven to have a lower income. The problem is
that Chathams post doesnt have a solid basis and Cooper (1987) published a study that
examined that problem, twenty years in advance to Chathams article.
Economic background, which was measured by the number of students receiving free
and reduced lunches, did not affect students performance. Even those who came
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from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, but took foreign language, performed
basically just as well as their more fortunate peers. (Webb, 1)
As per a research by Saunders (1998) showed, foreign language instruction does indeed
seem to have a positive effect on other areas. She examined third grade students who had
received foreign language instruction five days a week for thirty minutes per day over a
period of four years and compared them with fourth grade students who had not received
any foreign language instruction. She found those students in the ESFL [Elementary School
Foreign Language] program scored significantly higher on the Math portion if the ITBS [Iowa
Test Of Basic Skills] than the older students had scored (Webb, 1). Her support earlier
findings by Armstrong and Rogers (1997), who had constructed a study which showed that
third graders who were taught Spanish for thirty minutes, three times per week showed
statistically significant gains in their Metropolitan Achievement Test scores in the areas of
math and language (Webb, 1-2). A short article in the Kids Sense, 42. emphasizes that
[m]athematical skills, problem solving skills and the ability to synthesize information
increase with exposure to foreign language (Webb, 7). If we believe all of these findings, it
seems obvious that learning a foreign language has positive effects on our overall
intelligence. But how come?
Hunt(1964) already recognized the importance of language in the development of
young children, when he observed the opposite. He found that children who lack linguistic
abilities have perceptual deficiencies because they recognize fewer objects and
subsequently have fewer interests. The reason he sees for this is that language give us the
opportunity to categorize and integrate experiences (Sandel, 10).
Acquiring language can be seen as solving a problem. The need to communicate is
the problem and by mastering language we solve this problem. Hakuta (1985) explains this
with his theory that a mind that has worked on two problems, i.e. learning two languages,
has had more experience solving problems than a mind that has worked on just one
language (64). That brings us back to Premack, who states that language makes us more
flexible than other animals. According to the fact that up until the age of 12 new
neurological patterns are formed in the brain to accommodate a new language this would be
absolutely right. More diverse brain patterns consequently means more flexibility.
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Kousta, Vinson, and Vigliocco (2008) investigated on bilingualism in connection to the
linguistic relativity hypothesis. Their approach was to examine the strength and
pervasiveness of language-specific effects on cognition through the comparison of
monolingual and bilingual speakers using the same task and identical stimuli (854).
They wanted to prove that semantic representations do not influence cognition in any
significant way. Their approach to this problem was to examine bilingual speakers of Italian,
a language with grammatical gender, and English, a language without grammatical gender, in
comparison with monolingual speakers of English and Italian and how the semantic encoding
of grammatical gender is transferred from language to the other or how it influences
cognition. Monolinguals with background knowledge of other languages were excluded from
the experiment. In A set of tests monolinguals and bilinguals had to produce labels for
pictures they were shown under time pressure they had a certain time frame in which to
label these pictures. The labeling was done with either bare nouns or with noun phrases
consisting of a determiner and a noun. To make the data comparable the English labels were
given the grammatical gender of the Italian equivalent. The response types were categorized
into acceptable responses, correct or consistently-used, different label, and errors, as can be
seen in the table below. Errors were subcategorizes into lexical errors, a label that did not
qualify as a different label, omissions, when no response was given, self-corrections and
miscellanea, under which all other responses were filed, such as incomplete or inaudible
responses.
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The data collected for English monolinguals served as baseline. Since gender is not a formal
category in English, English semantic errors are driven by visual and conceptual similarity
(e.g., shared habitat, size, behavior, membership in the same genus) (848). The question on
is if Italian speaker make the same types of errors, reflecting the same types of similarity or if
grammatical gender plays a role as well. The results for gender-preserving errors, as visible
in the figure below, suggest that English participants had a negative correlation between
visual-conceptual similarity and gender -
as was expected because gender was
preserved below chance. Italian
monolinguals stand in contrast to the
English monolingual participants. Their
gender preservation was much higher,
showing a positive correlation between
visual-conceptual similarity and gender,
even though it would have been expected
to be even higher in noun phrases than in
bare nouns. Kousta, Vinson, and Vigliocco
explain this with the fact that in gendered
languages, like Italian, determiners are
selected on the basis of syntactic and phonological information, making the selection
happening so late during the phonological encoding of the noun phrase that it has little
effect on the lemma selection. But the results still show that for Italian speakers grammatical
gender increases semantic similarity (851).
Kousta, Vinson, and Vigliocco repeated the same experiment under the same
conditions with native Italian speaker who were highly proficient in English. The participants
had learned English after the age of 6 and had been living in the UK for at least 9 months. If
we assume that there is a transfer of gender information between languages, the results
should show that gender-preserving errors for Italian-English bilinguals should be much
greater than those of English monolinguals, no matter in which language the tests are
conducted.
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As the table below shows, the error rates in general were about the same as in the
experiment with monolinguals.
But if we take a look at the results for gender-
preserving errors the results are surprising for
us.
There is no significant difference in the
proprotion of gender-preserving errors
between English or Italian monolinguals and
Italian-English bilinguals. The data suggests
that semantic representations of bilingual
speakers in these studies are appropriate for
each of their languages (853) and that the
behaviour of bilingual speakers is predicted by the behaviour of monolingual speakers
(853).
Kousta, Vinson, and Vigliocco interpret this data by saying that even though there is
evidence for linguistic relativity within the same speaker it is very limited. If proficient
bilinguals who acquired their second language after their first show evidence of adaptation
to monolingual norms for their second language, then their first language has a very limited
effect, that is, an effect on just that language (853-54). This means that learning a foreign
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language does not seem to affect semantic representations in the first language. But does it
change cognition in any way? We do know that the brain accommodates a foreign language
purely anatomically up to the age of twelve and we know that this heightened flexibility in
our neurological pathways allows for more flexible combining of core-knowledge systems,
thus giving an advantage in other cognitive areas. What we do not know is if it actually
changes our perception of the world.
5. ConclusionAfter going through all this data and working through studies and graphics showing
the existence or non-existence of the effects of language on intelligence, is the question of
whether or not intelligent thought would be possible without language answered?
I think it is obvious how much of an effect language and intelligence have on each other and
it seems apparent that they are indeed interdependent to a great extent. But are they
interdependent enough so that one could not exist without the other? Could language have
evolved without human intelligence? No, it could not have. Premack has made this much
obvious. But the reverse question remains just that a question. Why?
In order to prove that intelligence can either only exist with or also without language we
would need to study languageless individuals. And here lies the problem. Is there even such
a thing as a languageless individual? In the past, persons have been found that grew up
without ever having been in contact with what we understand as language. But that does
not mean that they have no language whatsoever. Individuals, especially children, have been
known to invent they own language, independent from any other language. So called feral
children have been studied only after they came into contact with language. It would have
been impossible for scientists to study them without using language themselves and, more
importantly, because it would have been unethical.
What we do know, however, is that language does indeed have an effect on
intelligence. It may not determine our thoughts or influence our cognition as significantly as
originally thought, but it is a tool for us to categorize our experiences, to label our
perception and to grasp ideas and meanings beyond the perceivable. Research is far from
done in this field of study, but has already given an understanding of how important
linguistic representation is in teaching situations and how harmful impoverishment of
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communication is for children. It has become obvious how very important language in
general is, and how far beyond the obvious benefits of better job opportunities the effects of
foreign language learning can reach.
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Bibliography:
Hakuta, Kenji. Cognitive Development in Bilingual Instruction. Issues in English Language Development.
National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. (1985): 63-67.
18 Aug. 2010
Kousta, Stavroula-Thaleia, David P. Vinson, and Gabriella Vigliocco. Investigating Linguistic Relativity Through
Bilingualism: The Case of Grammatical Gender. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning,
Memory, and Cognition. 34.4 (2008): 843-858.
17. Aug. 2010
Lovgren, Stefan. Chimps, Humans 96 Percent the Same, Gene Study Finds. National Geographic News.
31 August 2005.
18. Aug. 2010
Premack, David. Is Language the Key to Human Intelligence? Science Magazine. 303 (2004): 318-320.
18. Aug. 2010
Sandel, Lenore. Summary #5: Review of Historical Research: The Relationship Between Language and
Intelligence. Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), 1998.
16. Aug. 2010
Spelke, Elizabeth S. What Makes Us Smart? Core Knowledge and Natural Language. Language in Mind.
Ed. Dedre Gentner and Susan Goldin-Meadow. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003: 277-311.
Webb, Elizabeth L. The Effect of Second Language Learning on Test Scores, Intelligence and Achievement. An
Annotated Bibliography. Georgia Department of Education.
19 Aug. 2010
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Works cited:
Hakuta, Kenji. Cognitive Development in Bilingual Instruction. Issues in English Language Development.
National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. (1985): 63-67.
18 Aug. 2010
Kousta, Stavroula-Thaleia, David P. Vinson, and Gabriella Vigliocco. Investigating Linguistic Relativity Through
Bilingualism: The Case of Grammatical Gender. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning,
Memory, and Cognition. 34.4 (2008): 843-858.
17. Aug. 2010
Premack, David. Is Language the Key to Human Intelligence? Science Magazine. 303 (2004): 318-320.
18. Aug. 2010
Sandel, Lenore. Summary #5: Review of Historical Research: The Relationship Between Language and
Intelligence. Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), 1998.
16. Aug. 2010
Spelke, Elizabeth S. What Makes Us Smart? Core Knowledge and Natural Language. Language in Mind.
Ed. Dedre Gentner and Susan Goldin-Meadow. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003: 277-311.
Webb, Elizabeth L. The Effect of Second Language Learning on Test Scores, Intelligence and Achievement. An
Annotated Bibliography. Georgia Department of Education.
19 Aug. 2010