LANGUAGE AND COGNITION

The term cognition refers to the use or handling of knowledge. It is the process
involved in thought and reasoning, and the faculty which permits us to think and
reason. Cognitive processes can be conscious or unconscious, and include processes
such as memory, association, concept formation, language, attention, perception,
action, problem solving and mental imagery.

Language is a special cognitive system that uses some physical signal (a sound,
a gesture, or mark on paper) to express meaning. It is a highly complex form of
behaviour that impinges on personality, emotional state, personal interaction, cultural
development and social structure. The goal of linguistics is to understand how
linguistic knowledge is represented in the mind, how it is acquired, how it is perceived
and used, and how it relates to other components of cognition.

The relationship between language and cognition has intrigued philosophers,

psychologists and linguists since the beginning of time. The issues that stand out in
discussions of this relationship can be put in the form of the following questions:

1. Do people who speak different languages think differently?

2. Is a certain level of cognitive development required for language
acquisition?
3. Is language fundamentally the same type of mental entity as other
cognitive abilities, or is it fundamentally different?

These issues are addressed in the sections that follow.

I. LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT:

A n influential view of the relationship between language and thought, known as
linguistic relativity, asserts in its strongest form, that language determines the way
people perceive and organize their worlds. This is also called the Sapir–Whorf
hypothesis.

The hypothesis arose from anthropological work among speakers of Polynesian,

North American Indian and Eskimo languages. The researchers adopted the assumption
that concepts not represented in the languages they studied were absent from the world
view of the people who spoke them. The view today is that all human beings have
access to basic concepts, but that languages differ in whether they codify a particular
concept or not. For example, English codifies many more types of walking than most
languages (walk, stroll, amble, loiter, wander, scurry, march, etc.), but speakers of
other languages are still capable of recognising the concepts involved.

Although speakers of different languages can recognise different concepts, a

range of studies has shown that at least some aspects of cognition are not universal.
Consider the following examples of apparent differences in cognition between speakers
of different languages:
1. Visual perception: The Müller-Lyer illusion asks which of two lines seems longer.
‘Westerners’ see:
<-----> as longer than: >-----<
though they are actually the same length; people from ‘non-Western’ cultures, such
as Zulus and Bushmen in Southern Africa and Hanunóo in the Philippines, see them
as the same length.

2. Taste and smell: The perception of taste and smell differs across groups, even if such
sensations are hard to verbalize in any language. Malaysians are able to make finer
distinctions than English speakers between solutions differing in saltiness; Germans
and Japanese differ over perceived pleasantness and intensity of odours.

3. Objects and substances: When classifying simple objects, Japanese are influenced by
the idea of their material rather than their shape; Americans are the reverse. When
asked to choose whether a plastic pyramid or a piece of cork is most like a cork
pyramid, Japanese preferred the piece of cork, English speakers the plastic pyramid.

4. Colour: Speakers of Setswana were more likely to group ‘green’ and ‘blue’ together
than speakers of English and Russian.

II. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION:

The relationship between cognition and language has implications for theories of
how the cognitive development of a child affects the course of language acquisition.
Here, several positions have emerged:

1. Cognition drives language: For the child psychologist Jean Piaget, language was part
of general cognitive and perceptual processing. Language acquisition was thus
dependent upon cognitive development. The child’s level of language was
determined by whether it had acquired certain fundamental cognitive concepts and
by the complexity of the processing operations of which it was capable.

Piaget suggested that cognitive development fell into four phases. The age at
which a particular child goes through each stage varies considerably. Each stage has
implications for linguistic development.

a) Sensori-motor (0–2 years): The child achieves recognition of object

permanence, that is, the fact that an object still exists even when it is not in
view. This is a prerequisite to the formation of concepts. It may be a dawning
awareness of object permanence which first leads the child to name things and
gives rise to the ‘vocabulary spurt’ at around 18 months. The first relational
words (‘NO’ ‘UP’ ‘MORE’ ‘GONE’) reflect object permanence, with those indicating
presence emerging before those (‘ALL GONE’) relating to absence. The child’s
language has its origins in simple signals (a bottle signifies eating) and then in
indexical relationships (a carer with a coat on signifies going out). Early words are
employed for symbolic reference (DOGGIE referring to one specific dog that is
present) but later acquire symbolic sense (‘doggie’ referring to the class of dogs).
The child’s productions may show an awareness of means–ends (the word MILK
gets the child a drink) and limited spatial awareness.
 b) Pre-operational (2–6 years): The child’s behaviour reflects egocentric
thought: it is unable to identify with the views of others. The child’s language
progresses through echolalia (repeating others’ utterances) to monologues
(speaking aloud what would normally be private thoughts). It may engage in
collective monologues with other children, in which participants appear to be
taking turns, but express their own ideas without responding to those of others.

c) Concrete operational (7–11 years): The child’s vocabulary shows signs of

organisation into hierarchical categories. It develops the concept of conservation
(the recognition that size or quantity is not dependent upon the container) and
shows signs of decentration (the ability to consider multiple aspects of a physical
problem). It learns to receive and respond to outside ideas.

d) Formal operational (11–15 years): The adolescent becomes capable of

abstract reasoning. It learns to construct its own argument structures, can
represent hypothetical situations and engages mentally and verbally in problem-
solving.

2. Language and cognition are mutually supportive: Vygotsky believed that in the early
years of life, speech and thought are independent. However, from the age of two
onwards, pre-linguistic thought (action schemas, images) begins to interact with pre-
intellectual language (words treated simply as properties of the objects they denote).
Gradually, ‘thought becomes verbal and speech rational’. An important part is played
by egocentric speech, which serves two functions: an internal one, where the child
monitors and organises its thoughts and an external one, where it communicates
those thoughts to others. The two are not fully differentiated until the child is about
seven, when a distinction is made between public conversation and private thought.

3. Language is independent of general cognition, though the two are closely linked. This
view is critical to the thinking of Chomsky and others, who argue that language is a
separate faculty which is innately acquired and which develops independently of the
intellectual capacities of the individual.

III. LANGUAGE AND OTHER COGNITIVE PROCESSES:

In the late 1950s, Noam Chomsky developed the field of generative linguistics.
Chomsky felt that language was a unique mental faculty, different from other cognitive
abilities. He conceived of language abilities as akin to a mental organ. On this view,
children are born with a "language acquisition device" and with specific linguistic
knowledge. This knowledge is thought to include the concepts of noun, verb,
grammatical subject, and structures which constrain possible grammatical rules. In
contrast to the views of the dominant psychological theory of the 1950s, behaviorism,
Chomsky argued that children do not learn to speak by imitating adults. Chomsky felt
that children could not learn language using general purpose problem solving. They
needed to have an innate predisposition to acquire linguistic structure. This
predisposition was believed to be specific to language, and thus did not share
commonalities with other aspects of cognition.
 This view that language is genetically transmitted is known as the nativist (little
linguist) view. A hypothesis associated with this view is that of modularity, which
claims that language is a separate faculty, supported by general cognition but not
dependent upon it.

Arguments in favour of modularity include the fact nearly every infant manages
to achieve full linguistic competence, regardless of variations in intelligence and in
ability to perform other cognitive functions. There are also forms of impairment where
language and general intelligence seem detached:

a) In specific language impairment, sufferers show signs of normal cognitive

development but their language remains incomplete in certain important features
(particularly inflections and function words).

b) Williams Syndrome presents the opposite symptoms. Sufferers show signs of

cognitive impairment, including low IQs. However, sufferers are often extremely
communicative and their vocabulary and speaking skills may be above normal at
early ages.

Contrary evidence to modularity comes from other forms of impairment such as

Down’s Syndrome, where both language and mental capacity are impaired. Similarly,
autism presents symptoms of cognitive and social impairment which affect all forms of
communication.

IV. OTHER VIEWS ON LANGUAGE AND COGNITION:

1. The Cognitive Linguistics movement: A subset of linguists disagreed with Chomsky's
(and the field's) emphasis on the uniqueness and specialness of language. These
linguists were dissatisfied with the range of linguistic phenomena excluded by
generative linguistics. They didn't accept the Chomskyan view that the most
important aspect of language was a mechanical device for generating only the
legitimate grammatical sentences. They wanted to understand language in all its
diversity, including narrative, discourse, dialects, social cultural influences on
language use and metaphor. This resulted in the emergence of the field of cognitive
linguistics in the late 1980s. By 2000, the cognitive linguistics movement had grown
into an enduring subfield within linguistics with considerable international members.
However, it has remained outside the mainstream of linguistics and cognitive
science.

2. Cognitive Neuroscience: In the 1990s the field of cognitive neuroscience emerged

from work in neuroscience and cognitive science. Cognitive neuroscience differs from
basic neuroscience by having the goal of explaining complex cognitive abilities, but
rejects the tradition from artificial intelligence that one can understand cognition
abstractly, without reference to its neural underpinnings.

V. CONCLUSION:
A classical view, dating back to Aristotle, holds that thought is prior to language
and that languages have developed the properties they have in order to express ideas.
In the first half of the 20th century the main question about the relationship between
language and cognition was whether the grammatical structure or vocabulary of our
language influence thought processes. Cognitive science introduced a new question -
whether language and cognition are similar or distinct human abilities. Although the
nature of the relationship between language and cognition has been controversial, we
can conclude that they are intimately related.