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Re: [xmca] Language May Help Create, Not Just Convey, Thoughts and Feelings

Serpel;
I suggest you explore your own emotional/somatic reactions to the vocal sounds of whatever language you wish. If you do not feel any reaction, then look for what emotional states the sounds suggest? Spoken language is founded upon sounds of the body, sounds that convey states of the body's emotions. The use of these sounds as words, to refer to things, is based upon their being expressive emotionally. Scientists have been distracted by the referential function of spoken language and have neglected to study the primal function of vocal body language, the conveyance of what's going on with the moment-by-moment emotional process. 
		Joseph Gilbert


On Nov 19, 2010, at 10:18 AM, Serpil S Sonmez wrote:
I thought this is a very timely article after Vygotsky/Sapir/Whorf/ Saussure discussions. 
Best,

Serpil S. Fox

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101103111206.htm

The paper appears in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
"Charlemagne is reputed to have said that to speak another language is to possess another soul," says co-author Oludamini Ogunnaike, a graduate student at Harvard. "This study suggests that language is much more than a medium for expressing thoughts and feelings. Our work hints that language creates and shapes our thoughts and feelings as well." 
Implicit attitudes, positive or negative associations people may be  
unaware they possess, have been shown to predict behavior towards  
members of social groups. Recent research has shown that these  
attitudes are quite malleable, susceptible to factors such as the  
weather, popular culture -- or, now, by the language people speak.

"Can we shift something as fundamental as what we like and dislike  
by changing the language in which our preferences are elicited?"  
asks co-author Mahzarin R. Banaji, the Richard Clarke Cabot  
Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard. "If the answer is yes, that  
gives more support to the idea that language is an important shaper  
of attitudes."

Ogunnaike, Banaji, and Yarrow Dunham, now at the University of  
California, Merced, used the well-known Implicit Association Test  
(IAT), where participants rapidly categorize words that flash on a  
computer screen or are played through headphones. The test gives  
participants only a fraction of a second to categorize words, not  
enough to think about their answers.
"The IAT bypasses a large part of conscious cognition and taps into  
something we're not aware of and can't easily control," Banaji says.

The researchers administered the IAT in two different settings:  
once in Morocco, with bilinguals in Arabic and French, and again in  
the U.S. with Latinos who speak both English and Spanish.
In Morocco, participants who took the IAT in Arabic showed greater  
preference for other Moroccans. When they took the test in French,  
that difference disappeared. Similarly, in the U.S., participants  
who took the test in Spanish showed a greater preference for other  
Hispanics. But again, in English, that preference disappeared.

"It was quite shocking to see that a person could take the same  
test, within a brief period of time, and show such different  
results," Ogunnaike says. "It's like asking your friend if he likes  
ice cream in English, and then turning around and asking him again  
in French and getting a different answer."

In the Moroccan test, participants saw "Moroccan" names (such as  
Hassan or Fatimah) or "French" names (such as Jean or Marie) flash  
on a monitor, along with words that are "good" (such as happy or  
nice) or "bad" (such as hate or mean). Participants might press one  
key when they see a Moroccan name or a good word, and press another  
when they see a French name or a bad word. Then the key assignments  
are switched so that "Moroccan" and "bad" share the same key and  
"French" and "good" share the other.

Linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf first posited in the 1930s that  
language is so powerful that it can determine thought. Mainstream  
psychology has taken the more skeptical view that while language  
may affect thought processes, it doesn't influence thought itself.  
This new study suggests that Whorf's idea, when not caricatured,  
may generate interesting hypotheses that researchers can continue  
to test.

"These results challenge our views of attitudes as stable," Banaji  
says. "There still remain big questions about just how fixed or  
flexible they are, and language may provide a window through which  
we will learn about their nature."

Ogunnaike, Dunham, and Banaji's work was supported by Harvard's  
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Mellon Mays  
Foundation.

]
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