TASK THIRTEEN LIC MGC DEADLINE: August, Tuesday 30 th

JANET HOLMES CHAPTER 13

LANGUAGE, COGNITION AND CULTURE

1. What does language cognition and culture refer to?

● Earlier chapters demonstrate that the way a person speaks generally signals at least some
social information about their background, such as what kind of social group or class they
belong to. A person's ethnicity, age, and gender are also often reflected in their linguistic
choices.
Example. -
A: Why are all dumb blonde jokes one-liners?
B: So, men can remember them
Jokes like this encode culturally specific assumptions, eg, that blonde typucally refers to a woman,
not a manm and that catergories “dumb blonde” and “dum blonde jokes” are familirar to the
addressee.

2. Explain the subtitle language and perception.

● Speech perception is the process by which the sounds of language are heard, interpreted,
and understood. The study of speech perception is closely linked to the fields of
phonology and phonetics in linguistics and cognitive psychology and perception in
psychology.
Perception is the process by which the sounds of language are heard, assimilated and understood.
Language is a rule governed system of verbal and nonverbal symbols used by members of a speech
community to create meaning
- Phonetic rules
- Semantic Rules
- Syntactic Rules

3. What is verbal hygiene? Following the examples in the book, give one or
two examples in our city.
● Deborah Cameron uses the term verbal hygiene to describe how people attempt to use
language precisely and appropriately in different situations and registers. Language
reflects society's perceptions of particular groups through labeling that was positive and
negative connotation.
Example.-
Enforcing Ideology: People now consider that the language is sexist, so we all expect to be taken
into account in any speech, for example
- Señoras y señores, presidente - presidenta, ellos - ellas - elles.
Changing Word Meaning: In the past, the word “cunumi” was used to refer to a young girl, but
now that term is used in a deceptive manner to refer to an ordinary person that could be a girl or a
boy.
4. Explain Lee Whorf´s vocabulary and cognition.
● Studies suggest that there is a close relationship between language and perception. Whorf and
Sapir suggested that particular words selected to describe or label objects often influence
perception and behavior. The strong interpretation of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is generally
labeled linguistic determinism. This holds that people from different cultures think different
because of difference in their language

5. Explain linguistic determinism: the medium is the message.

● The strong form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is generally called linguistic determinism. This
holds that people from different cultures think differently due to differences in their
languages. A native Hopi speaker, for example, perceives reality differently than a native
English speaker because he uses a different language. Few sociolinguists would accept such a
strong claim, but most do accept the weaker claim of linguistic relativity, that language
influences perceptions, thought, and, potentially at least, behavior.

6. What is grammar and cognition?

● Grammatical categories such as tense, aspect, and gender encode aspects of reality in
different languages. Whorf's analysis of the Hopi verbal system led him to argue that the Hopi
conception of time is fundamentally different from that of Western cultures. Speakers of
European languages often conceive of time as a path, for example with the future ahead and
the past behind. Whorf suggested that this reflects the tense system of the Indo-European
languages. However, the proper conjugation of Hopi verbs requires an analysis of events in
terms of dynamic movement, expressed by aspect markers, rather than by tenses that mark
their distribution in time. This led Whorf to conclude that the Hopi think in terms of cycles of
events and sets of processes rather than units of time.

7. Investigate about linguistic categories and culture.

● Native American and Aboriginal Australian languages are often cited as examples that roundly
refute popular misconceptions about primitive languages. Kwakiutl, a Native American
language, for example, requires grammatical classification of nouns based on whether they are
visible or not. And while French requires each noun to be assigned to one of two genders,
Dyirbal, an Australian Aboriginal language, is thousands of years old and its languages are
among the most interesting and grammatically complex ever investigated. Consequently,
whenever a Dyirbal speaker uses a noun in a sentence, the noun must be preceded by one of
four classifiers:

bayi: male, some animals

balan: females, birds,water,fire
balam: non-flesh food
bala: everything else

8. Following table 13.1 investigate the numbers in Guarani, Aymara and

Quechua. Start with the Spanish version.
Español Guarani Aymara Quechua
1. uno metei Maya huk
2. dos mokoi Paya iskay
3. tres mboapi Kimsa kinsa
4. cuatro irundi Pusi tawa
5. cinco pandepo Phisqa pisqa
6. seis ova Suxta soqta
7. siete chiu Paqallqu qanchis
8. ocho juri Kimsaqallqu puasaq
9. nueve chau LLatunka iskon
10. diez pañandepo Tunka chunka
11. once patei Tunka mayani chunka hukniyog

References:
https://www.google.com/search?q=LANGUAGE%2C+COGNITION+AND+CULTURE&oq=LANGUAGE
%2C+COGNITION+AND+CULTURE&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l7.565j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UT
F-8

https://www.cambridge.org/core/series/language-culture-and
cognition/F2060E051005222F5E2DD00D7293CCEE

https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/verbal-hygiene/
https://www.google.com/search?
q=linguistic+categories+and+culture&oq=linguistic+categories+and+culture&aqs=chrome..69i57.8379j0j9&sourceid=chr
ome&ie=UTF-8