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On the linguistic shaping of thought: Another response to Alfred Bloom1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Donna Lardiere
Donna Lardiere
Affiliation:
Program in Applied Linguistics, Boston University, 718 Commonwealth Avenue Boston, MA 02215
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Abstract

Bloom (1981, 1984) linked the existence of specific grammatical constructions – for example, the counterfactual conditional in English – to the development of a labeled cognitive schema specific to counterfactual thought. He claimed that because the Chinese language lacks an equivalent grammatical marker, Chinese speakers do not develop the corresponding cognitive schema and thus process counterfactuals “less naturally” (1981:22) than English speakers. Whereas attempts to replicate Bloom (Au 1983, 1984; Liu 1985) questioned the extent to which such differences exist, this article demonstrates that where differences in counterfactual response patterns clearly do exist, they cannot be attributed to the presence/absence of a linguistic “counterfactual” construction.

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 1992 , pp. 231 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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