Halpern: Thought and Knowledge PDF

CHAPTER 3 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE Contents THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE 113 Psycholinguistics 114 Underlying Representation and Surface Structure 114 Implications and Inference 11...

CHAPTER 3 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE Contents THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE 113 Psycholinguistics 114 Underlying Representation and Surface Structure 114 Implications and Inference 116 The Role of Inference in Advertisements 116 Rules for Clear Communication 119 Analogy and Metaphor 124 Using Analogies as an Aid to Understanding 125 Using Analogies to Persuade 127 WORDS AND THEIR MEANINGS 129 Definitions and the Control of Thought 130 The Power of Labels and Categories 132 Prototypical Thinking 133 LANGUAGE: TOOL OR MASTER OF THOUGHT? 135 The Direction and Misdirection of Thought 136 Emotional Language and Name Calling 137 Ambiguity, Vagueness, and Equivocation 139 Etymology and Reification 141 Bureaucratese and Euphemism 141 The Perils of Polite Speech 143 Framing with Leading Questions and Negation 144 Contrast and Context 146 Anchoring 148 Barometers of Thought 149 COMPREHENSION: THE REASON FOR LANGUAGE 151 Strategies for Comprehension 151 Re-representation 152  The Relationship between Thought and Language 113 Questioning and Explaining 153 Concept Maps 156 Spatial Representation of Thought 167 General Guidelines and Principles 168 CHAPTER SUMMARY 169 TERMS TO KNOW 171 There is an old story about three umpires that goes something like this: Three umpires were unwinding at a local pub after a very tough day. All three had endured abusive shouts like, “Kill the Umpire” and had numerous offers for new pairs of eyeglasses. After a few mugs of brew, they began discussing how they decide to call balls and strikes. The first umpire, Jim, explained that it was really quite simple. “I simply call them as I see them.” Donnie, the second umpire, disagreed when he said, “I see them as I call them.” Neil, the third umpire, emphatically shook his head in disagreement with the other two. “You’re both wrong,” he said, slurring his words somewhat. “They don’t even exist until I call them.” Neil had a good point. Whether a ball whizzing past home plate is a ball or strike depends on what the umpire labels it. The words he uses both inter- pret and define reality. Thought and Language The development of mind, thought, and language is simply a nexus in which it is impossible to separate one from the other. —Michael Studdert-Kennedy (quoted in Restak, 1988, p. 231) How do you express your thoughts in words and sentences? How influ- enced are you by your particular language? You will have difficulty an- swering these questions because you use both so automatically and because you have no conscious awareness of the way your thoughts give 114 The Relationship between Thought and Language rise to the words you use to express them. In fact, if you try to monitor your speaking process, you’ll find yourself stuttering and interfering with the fluid speech that you normally create so easily. It is as though speech emerges automatically and preformed. Conscious attention directed at the process tends to interfere with it. Psycholinguistics Communication is primarily an exercise in thinking. —Russell Pitt and Jack Leavenworth (1968, p. viii) Psycholinguistics is the field of psychology concerned with how we ac- quire and use language. Language is a complex cognitive activity that all normal humans perform with apparent skill and ease. As speakers, we select the words we want to use and produce them in a (mostly) grammatically correct form. As listeners, we use the information in another’s utterance to share the expressed thoughts. What do we know about the way speakers and listeners share thoughts through the medium of language? Underlying Representation and Surface Structure Language appears to be simply the clothing of naked thought. —James E. Miller (1972, p. 43) The comprehension of language is a process in which the message is used to construct a representation of the information referred to in the message. The sequence of sounds that we produce must correspond to our intended meaning if we are to communicate successfully. The “sender” and the “re- ceiver” also must share a common knowledge of word meanings and gram- mar. Because language is always incomplete, the receiver must rely on prior knowledge, context, and other cues to comprehension to construct a cor- rect representation. Psychologists who are concerned with the way people use and understand language divide language into two structures or types of representations. The underlying representation of language refers to the meaning com- ponent of language—it is the thought you want to convey. Surface struc- ture refers to the sounds of the verbal expression that you use or its written form on paper, a computer monitor, or some other writing surface. Look carefully at Figure 3.1 which depicts this process.  The Relationship between Thought and Language 115 The Thought in the Mind of the Sender (Deep Structure) Comprehending Language Producing Language Writing or Speaking Words, Phrases, Sentences that Express the Thought Speech Sounds Shapes of Letters on Paper or Computer Terminal (Surface Structures) Figure 3.1 The problem of comprehension. The sender has a thought that she wants to communicate to a receiver. The thought (deep structure) is private and known only to the sender. It is transformed by speech sounds or the shapes of letters (surface struc- ture), which are used by the receiver to reconstruct the meaning expressed by the sender’s words. As you can see, the thought in the mind of the “sender” is the underlying or deep structure. The thought is private and known only to the sender. The problem in producing language is deriving surface structure from the underlying representation in the sender’s mind, while the problem in com- prehending language is getting from the surface structure back to the speaker’s (or writer’s) underlying representation. Language is integral in these processes because it is the medium with which thoughts and emo- tions are most often expressed and interpreted (although other media such as dance, mime, and visual art are sometimes used to express thoughts and emotions). A communication is “successful” when the underlying representation con- structed by the receiver matches the underlying representation of the sender. The receiver’s representation of the meaning is constructed over time because using language is a sequential process with words uttered or read one after the other. All strategies for improving comprehension in- volve ways of building representations so that they will most nearly match the one intended by the sender. It is the representation of knowledge about the world, the “architecture of the cognitive system,” that mediates comprehension. 116 The Relationship between Thought and Language When language is ambiguous, the surface structure can have more than one meaning or underlying representation. Real newspaper headlines are written to be as short as possible, and in the writing, there are sometimes hilarious examples of ambiguity. Here are some examples (from fun-with- words.com): Kids Make Nutritious Snacks Grandmother of Eight Makes Hole in One Milk Drinkers Are Turning to Powder Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Case Lack of Brains Hinders Research 2 Sisters Reunited After 18 Years at Checkout Counter The reason that these headlines are so funny is that we start “down the garden path” assuming one meaning, which is then changed on us or we can think of more than one meaning at a time and one of the meanings is, well, less meaningful. Implications and Inference Communication depends as much on information that is implied as it does on the words that are explicitly stated. Comprehension of meaningful ma- terial will always require the listener or reader to make inferences by going beyond the words uttered. Consider this very simple three-sentence story: Matt inherited a great deal of money. Bertha loves diamonds and furs. Bertha married Matt. Although very little factual information was provided, it is a meaningful story. Readers infer that Bertha married Matt for his money and that she will use his money to buy diamonds and furs, although this interpretation may not be correct. All communication requires the receiver to fill in gaps between given bits of information to understand the intended meaning. Much of the meaning people convey goes beyond the meaning of the words they utter. The Role of Inference in Advertisements One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called weasel words. When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out  The Relationship between Thought and Language 117 of the egg. If you use a weasel word after another there is nothing left of the other. —Theodore Roosevelt (1916 presidential speech, former president of the United States, from dictionary.com) When you produce speech, the intended meaning is implied or suggested by the words you use, the context in which it is embedded, and verbal and nonverbal expressions. It is possible to say one thing while communicating something quite different. This technique is often used by advertisers who want to persuade you to buy their products, yet have legal restrictions on the kinds of statements they can make. If they get you to infer meaning from the advertisement, they are protected from making false claims. Here are some examples (modified just enough to keep me out of legal trouble): Consuming fiber is an important part of a weight loss system. FiberBars are the only fiber bar that tastes better than the box it comes in. Try one today! The narrator never says that eating fiber will cause weight loss. Fiber is an important part of a weight loss system, but so are protein and exercise. “An important part of” is a common weasel phrase that is used so that the receiver of the communication infers something that is not said because it is not true. Weasel phrases convey the idea that something specific has been said, when it fact the words used are general and ambiguous. The image for a weasel phrase is that of an empty egg—something that appears to be solid and useful, but in fact is empty and devoid of content. Here’s another example: What should you do during those dreaded moments when you feel a cold starting? You could do nothing or take ColdAway. The inference is that taking ColdAway will somehow make your cold go away. Of course, nothing like that is actually said—it is inferred because we automatically make meaning from communications and fill in the blanks in ways that make sense. Carefully selected words in advertisements are used to create an inference that something is true when it is not. Airlines and other businesses often boast: “Nobody beats our fares.”  118 The Relationship between Thought and Language The air lines (or at least those who write their advertisements) expect that readers will infer that this means that they have the lowest fares. Of course, they never state that they have the lowest fares because that would be false. Nobody beats their fares because nearly all of the fares are the same. They could have said, “Our fares are the same as our competitors.” But, if they said it that way, it would not mislead readers into believing that they have the lowest fares, and consumers would correctly conclude that it does not matter which airline they book with if cost is the sole determining factor. Always consider the distinction between the linguistic content of the mes- sage and the inference you draw from it. When you start reading and listening critically to advertisements, you may be surprised to find appalling attempts to create impressions that can change beliefs. It is fun to start looking carefully at what advertisements actually say and what we infer. It is instructive to read the advertisements for supposed weight loss products (e.g., cellulite creams, sauna suits, herbal wraps, fat-burning vitamins, magic formula pills). Even the ubiquitous “before and after” photos are designed to create the inference that you will lose “30 or more pounds in two weeks” while eating anything you want and without “tedious” exercise. The ubiquitous “studies show” is lampooned in the following cartoon. Cognitive psychologists know that people remember the implied meaning of a message, and not the actual statements that were made. If you have already read the chapter on the development of memory skills, this should not be surprising to you. Meaningful information is more easily remem- bered than nonmeaningful information. We rarely remember statements "aNSWeRS".' ~uft!P.~.,.,O~'1~ · "aNSWeRS".' ~uft!P.~.,.,O~'1~ ~uft!P.~.,.,O~'1~ · (,it)!)\\:h (,it)!)\\:h · \\I\.'{~ ~\lPINN ~uft!P.~.,.,O~'1~ · "aNSWeRS".' "aNSWeRS".' ~uft!P.~.,.,O~'1~ ~uft!P.~.,.,O~'1~ · 1~JS;f~ foR · Lot..~ ~uft!P.~.,.,O~'1~ · "aNSWeRS".' "aNSWeRS".' ~ ~ ~uft!P.~.,.,O~'1~ · ~uft!P.~.,.,O~'1~ · ~ , 1\\''''-'~ ~o mf,.N9 Lr>.RC.,N'