Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T22:36:20.366Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Speaking of shape: The effects of language-specific encoding on semantic representations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2014

Pamela Perniss ,
David Vinson ,
Frank Seifart  and
Gabriella Vigliocco
Pamela Perniss
Affiliation:
Deafness, Cognition, and Language Research Centre (DCAL), UCL, London
David Vinson
Affiliation:
Deafness, Cognition, and Language Research Centre (DCAL), UCL, London
Frank Seifart
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig
Gabriella Vigliocco*
Affiliation:
Deafness, Cognition, and Language Research Centre (DCAL), UCL, London
*
Correspondence addresses: Pamela Perniss, Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL), 49 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD, UK. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The question of whether different linguistic patterns differentially influence semantic and conceptual representations is of central interest in cognitive science. In this paper, we investigate whether the regular encoding of shape within a nominal classification system leads to an increased salience of shape in speakers' semantic representations by comparing English, (Amazonian) Spanish, and Bora, a shape-based classifier language spoken in the Amazonian regions of Columbia and Peru. Crucially, in displaying obligatory use, pervasiveness in grammar, high discourse frequency, and phonological variability of forms corresponding to particular shape features, the Bora classifier system differs in important ways from those in previous studies investigating effects of nominal classification, thereby allowing better control of factors that may have influenced previous findings. In addition, the inclusion of Spanish monolinguals living in the Bora village allowed control for the possibility that differences found between English and Bora speakers may be attributed to their very different living environments. We found that shape is more salient in the semantic representation of objects for speakers of Bora, which systematically encodes shape, than for speakers of English and Spanish, which do not. Our results are consistent with assumptions that semantic representations are shaped and modulated by our specific linguistic experiences.

Keywords

semantic representationnominal classificationshape-based semanticssemantic similaritylinguistic relativity
Type
Research Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , September 2012 , pp. 223 - 242
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aikhenvald, A. Y. 2000. Classifiers. A typology of noun categorization devices. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Allan, K. 1977. Classifiers. Language 53. 285–311.Google Scholar
Bloom, P. & Keil, F. C.. 2001. Thinking through language. Mind and Language 16(4). 351–367.Google Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W. 1986. Noun classes and noun classification in typological perspective. In Craig, C. (ed.), Noun classes and categorization, 105–112. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Evans, N. & Levinson, S. C.. 2009. The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science. Behavioural and Brain Sciences 32(5). 429–492.Google Scholar
Gao, M. Y. & Malt, B. C.. 2009. Mental representation and cognitive consequences of Chinese individual classifiers. Language and Cognitive Processes 24(7). 1124–1179.Google Scholar
Gaskins, S. & Lucy, J. A.. 2003. Interaction of language type and referent type in the development of nonverbal classification preferences. In Gentner, D. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (eds.), Language in mind: Advances in the study of language and thought, 465–492. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Imai, M. & Gentner, D.. 1997. A crosslinguistic study of early word meaning: Universal ontology and linguistic influence. Cognition 62. 169–200.Google Scholar
Imai, M. & Mazuka, R.. 2007. Revisiting language universals and linguistic relativity: Language-relative construal of individuation constrained by universal ontology. Cognitive Science 31. 385–414.Google Scholar
Imai, M. & Saalbach, H.. 2010. Categories in mind and categories in language: Are classifier categories a reflection of the mind? In Malt, B. C. & Wolff, P. (eds.), Words and the mind: How words capture human experience, 138–164. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Imai, M., Saalbach, H. & Stern, E.. 2010. Are Chinese and German children taxonomic, thematic, or shape biased? Influence of classifiers and cultural contexts. Frontiers in Psychology 1. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00194.Google Scholar
Iwasaki, N., Vinson, D. P. & Vigliocco, G.. 2010. Does the grammatical count/mass distinction affect semantic representations? Evidence from experiments in English and Japanese. Language and Cognitive Processes 25(2). 189–223.Google Scholar
Klima, E. S. & Bellugi, U.. 1979. The signs of language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kousta, S., Vinson, D. P. & Vigliocco, G.. 2008. Investigating linguistic relativity through bilingualism: The case of grammatical gender. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 34(4). 843–858.Google Scholar
Kuo, J. Y. & Sera, M. D.. 2009. Classifier effects on human categorization: The role of shape classifiers in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 18. 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lucy, J. A. 1992. Grammatical categories and cognition. A case study of the linguistic relativity hypothesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lucy, J. A. & Gaskins, S.. 2001. Grammatical categories and the development of classification preferences: A comparative approach. In Bowerman, M. & Levinson, S. C. (eds.), Language acquisition and conceptual development, 257–283. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mazuka, R. & Friedman, R. S.. 2000. Linguistic relativity in Japanese and English: Is language the primary determinant in object classification? Journal of East Asian Linguistics 9(4). 353–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saalbach, H. & Imai, M.. 2007. The scope of linguistic influence: Does a classifier system alter object concepts? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 136. 485–501.Google Scholar
Sandler, W. & Lillo-Martin, D.. 2006. Sign language and linguistic universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schmitt, B. H. & Zhang, S.. 1998. Language structure and categorization: A study of classifiers in consumer cognition, judgment, and choice. Journal of Consumer Research 25(2). 108–122.Google Scholar
Seifart, F. 2005. The structure and use of shape-based noun classes in Miraña (North West Amazon). MPI Series in Psycholinguistics 32. (PhD dissertation, Radboud University Nijmegen.) Wageningen: Ponsen & Looijen.Google Scholar
Senft, G. (ed.). 2000. Systems of nominal classification. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. 1996. From “thought and language” to “thinking for speaking”. In Gumperz, J. J. & Levinson, S. C. (eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity, 70–96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Srinivasan, M. 2010. Do classifiers predict differences in cognitive processing? A study of nominal classification in Mandarin Chinese. Language and Cognition 2(2). 177–190.Google Scholar
Vigliocco, G., Vinson, D. P., Paganelli, F. & Dworzynski, K.. 2005. Grammatical gender effects on cognition: Implications for language learning and language use. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 134(4). 501–520.Google Scholar
Zhang, S. & Schmitt, B. H.. 1998. Language-dependent classification: The mental representation of classifiers in cognition, memory, and ad evaluations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 4. 375–385.Google Scholar