Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and Thought [Paperback]

Dedre Gentner (Editor), Susan Goldin-Meadow (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0262571633 | ISBN-13: 978-0262571630 | Publication Date: March 14, 2003

The idea that the language we speak influences the way we think has evoked perennial fascination and intense controversy. According to the strong version of this hypothesis, called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis after the American linguists who propounded it, languages vary in their semantic partitioning of the world, and the structure of one's language influences how one understands the world. Thus speakers of different languages perceive the world differently.Although the last two decades have been marked by extreme skepticism concerning the possible effects of language on thought, recent theoretical and methodological advances in cognitive science have given the question new life. Research in linguistics and linguistic anthropology has revealed striking differences in cross-linguistic semantic patterns, and cognitive psychology has developed subtle techniques for studying how people represent and remember experience. It is now possible to test predictions about how a given language influences the thinking of its speakers.Language in Mind includes contributions from both skeptics and believers and from a range of fields. It contains work in cognitive psychology, cognitive development, linguistics, anthropology, and animal cognition. The topics discussed include space, number, motion, gender, theory of mind, thematic roles, and the ontological distinction between objects and substances. The contributors include Melissa Bowerman, Eve Clark, Jill de Villiers, Peter de Villiers, Giyoo Hatano, Stan Kuczaj, Barbara Landau, Stephen Levinson, John Lucy, Barbara Malt, Dan Slobin, Steven Sloman, Elizabeth Spelke, and Michael Tomasello.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Remember the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis—the idea that the language you speak shapes the way you think? It's been pronounced dead a number of times in the past fifty years, and yet it just won't go away. To understand why not, read Language in Mind. There the leading scholars in the field take a fresh look at Sapir-Whorf and offer intriguing new evidence for it. But they do more than just revive the hypothesis. They rework it and give it a genuinely new shape as they show how it bears on a range of new issues in language and thinking. It is this revised perspective that will inspire the next generation of thinking and research on the way language affects thought." Herbert H. Clark, Department of Psychology, Stanford University

"Remember the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis -- the idea that the language you speak shapes the way you think? It's been pronounced dead a number of times in the past fifty years, and yet it just won't go away. To understand why not, read *Language in Mind*. There the leading scholars in the field take a fresh look at Sapir-Whorf and offer intriguing new evidence for it. But they do more than just revive the hypothesis. They rework it and give it a genuinely new shape as they show how it bears on a range of new issues in language and thinking. It is this revised perspective that will inspire the next generation of thinking and research on the way language affects thought."--Herbert H. Clark, Department of Psychology, Stanford University

About the Author

Susan Goldin-Meadow is Professor of Psychology and an affiliate of the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago.

Product Details

• Paperback: 538 pages
• Publisher: A Bradford Book (March 14, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262571633
• ISBN-13: 978-0262571630
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #482,491 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Whorf's postulate, February 20, 2006

By 

Robert Jones (Emporia, Kansas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and Thought (Paperback)

The model (theory) of the world that an intelligence will form
depends upon the particular representation used by the learner.
(Machine Learning, Tom Mitchell, McGraw Hill, 1997, pgs 65-66)
While this is rigorously true for the learner's INTERNAL
representation (i.e. the language of thought) it will also
apply to NATURAL languages that the agent employs to the
degree that reasoning is performed in the natural language
and/or to the degree to which the natural language mirrors
the language of thought. This dependence of the learner's
understanding of the world on his language may help to
explain why translation between natural languages is so
difficult. Gentner and Goldin-Meadow's book does a good
job of discussing current research in this area.