CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 5
CULTURE, LANGUAGE, AND
CULTURE, LANGUAGE, AND
COGNITION
COGNITION

Focus of Chapter 5
•
Influence of culture, cognition, and language on
development
•
Examine 2 opposing theories by looking at cross-
cultural research data
•
Examine the link between cognitive & linguistic
behaviors across cultures
•
Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory and
Vygotsky’s ZPD

Culture,
Language
, Cognition
•
Cognition
–
the mental processes
involved in gaining knowledge and comprehension,
including thinking, knowing, remembering, judging, and problem solving.
–
These are higher-level functions of thebrain
•
Language
–
a system of communicating
with other peopleusing sounds, symbols and
words in expressing a meaning, idea or thought.
–
primarily through oral and written communications as well as using
expressions through body language.

Culture-
Language-
Cognition
•
Does cognition influence language?
•
Does language influence thinking?
•
In what language does a bilingual/bicultural
think in?
–
Nativelanguageor second language?
•
Do people who speak different languages think
about and experience the world differently?

Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis

Culture-
Language-
Cognition
•
Do people who speak different languages think
about and experience the world differently?
–
Argument: If people’s thinking is influenceby their
language, then wecould explain differences in
cognition by studying differences in languagespoken
in different cultures

Culture-
Language-
Cognition
•
Research has not been ableto support thehypothesis
–
i.e., Thinking is not determined by language.
–
Rather, how wetalk about “things” determines how we
perceive the topics
•
Vygotsky’s perceived
culture-language-cognition are
interrelated and dynamic
–
i.e., social interactions shape languagedevelopment and
thinking abilities
–
“
talking to learn
”—as children interact with others, they
internalize language, and organizetheir thinking

Culture-
Language-
Cognition
•
Acculturation
–
Themodification of thecultureof a group or
individual as a result of contact with a different
culture.
•
Enculturation
–
theadoption of the behavior patterns of the
surrounding culture; "thesocialization of children to
thenorms of their culture"

Culture-
Language-
Cognition
•
As children learn language, their cognition also develop
through a process called
enculturation
•
A method to help children enculturateis
scaffolding
or
guidance
•
This usually occurs during theZoneof Proximal
Development
•
Important initial guidanceand support comes from
caretakers,
–
A behavior strongly influenceby culture

Get Back to Original Questions
•
Does cognition influence language?


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- Spring '08
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- Psychology, Trigraph, lopm nt, Piage C Vygotsky, diffe nt