Description: This seminar explores the relation of language and thought. Is language uniquely human, and if so, what does this reveal about the human mind? Does the particular language you speak affect the way you think, or do human languages reflect a universal conceptual repertoire? The goal of this class is to familiarize you with a set of classic arguments on these themes, together with current research that evaluates these arguments, through weekly reading and discussion. You will write a final paper that builds on the work covered in class.

Instructor: Terry Regier (email: firstname dot lastname at berkeley dot edu ; office hours Wednesdays 10am-12pm in 1221 Dwinelle).

Time & location: Wednesdays 2-3pm and Fridays 2-4pm, in 101 Wheeler.

Format and grading: The class is discussion-based. Each week, the readings for that week will be presented by students, and discussed. There will also be short weekly written responses to the readings, and a final paper. Grades will be determined as follows:

1. Presentations of readings (20%),
2. In-class discussion (25%),
3. Weekly responses (25%),
4. Final paper (30%).

Presentations. Each student will be responsible for presenting one or more of the readings in class. The presentation will take place at the beginning of class, and should consist of: (1) a brief summary of the content of the reading, and (2) a set of comments and/or critiques that engage and go beyond the reading. At the beginning of the semester, students will be expected to sign up to present particular readings later in the semester.

In-class discussion. All students are expected to engage in discussion in each class.

Weekly responses. Every week, each student should email me, by noon the Thursday before class, a short (max. 400 words) response to the readings for that week. Your response should draw general conclusions that integrate across that week's readings, and that go beyond the readings. One way to do this is to identify an interesting question that is relevant to the arguments advanced in the readings, but is left unaddressed by the readings themselves. This is a chance to demonstrate that you "get" the broad point of the readings, and know how to think about the readings in relation to each other and in relation to the topic of the class more generally. Grading of weekly responses: Each week, 5 of the submitted responses will receive a numerical grade based on quality of argumentation; the rest will receive a check mark (if the writeup shows evidence of having genuinely attempted to engage the readings) or a 0 (otherwise). I will not tell you in advance on which weeks your writeup will receive a numerical grade. Your overall grade for weekly responses will be the average of the numerical grades and the check-mark grades.

Final paper. Your final paper gives you the opportunity to follow up in detail on a topic that interests you. In this paper, you should summarize and conceptually organize existing knowledge on an issue related to language and thought. You may either build on your weekly responses and in-class presentations, or explore other questions. Format and structure of the final paper are described below.

Preparation and due date. I will guide you in class through the steps of formulating and writing your paper. You will be expected to verbally present your paper in class during our final meeting on Friday Dec 9. The final version of your paper is due by email (address to be sent to you via bSpace), by 12 noon on Monday Dec 12.

Format and structure of final paper. Your final paper should be submitted as a PDF, single-spaced, with one-inch margins, and font at least 11 points in size. It should not exceed 8 pages in length, excluding references. Your paper should contain the following sections. Start each section with the section title provided below.

1. The question. In this section, state the overall question that you have chosen to pursue, and explain briefly why this question is important.
2. Theories and hypotheses. What existing theories attempt to answer the question raised in Section 1? Briefly describe the major theoretical positions in the literature, the specific hypotheses that follow from them, and the predictions these hypotheses make. By doing so, in this section you will lay out the conceptual structure of the debate - but you should not yet report any evidence.
3. Evidence. What evidence exists that supports or challenges the theories you outlined in the previous section? Please be concrete about (a) the methods used, (b) the specific pattern of results obtained, and (c) exactly how that pattern of results supports or challenges the theories you specified in the previous section.
4. Discussion and conclusions. Indicate what one may conclude (and also what one may not conclude, i.e. what is left open) about the theories you have specified, given the totality of the evidence you have reported. Make sure you explain the broader meaning of the results, and integrate them together to yield a general sense of which, if any, of the theories is broadly supported.
5. References. References are not included in the page limit.
6. Abstracts. Include the title and abstract of each journal article that you list in your reference section. If some of the reading materials that you cited don't have an abstract (e.g., a book or a book chapter), then include a copy of the title page and another page or two from the text that summarizes its contents or gives a representative sense of them.

Final recommendations: Write for an intelligent non-specialist reader. Make sure you edit your paper carefully and revise it several times; this will be reflected in the grade. The best way to do this is to ask another student for critical comments. Plan ahead so that you have enough lead time for revising drafts.

Readings and schedule

Aug. 26: Organization and orientation

Part 1: Is language uniquely human, and if so, why?

Sep. 2: Language and animal communication

Hockett, Charles F. (1959). Animal "languages" and human language. Human Biology 31, 32-39.

Johnson, G. (1995). Chimp talk debate: Is it really language? New York Times, June 6, 1995, C1.

Savage-Rumbaugh, S. et al. (1986). Spontaneous symbol acquisition and communicative use by pygmy chimpanzees (Pan paniscus). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 115, 211-235.

Sep. 9: Universal grammar and the poverty of the stimulus

Chomsky, N. (1986). Preface & Knowledge of language as a focus of inquiry. In Knowledge of language: Its nature, origin, and use (pp. xxv-14). Westport, CT: Praeger.

Orwell, G. (1946). Politics and the English language.

Reali, F. & Christiansen, M. (2005). Uncovering the richness of the stimulus: Structure dependence and indirect statistical evidence. Cognitive Science, 29, 1007-1028.

Sep. 16: The faculty of language

Hauser, M. D. et al. (2002). The faculty of language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science 298, 1569-1579.

Fitch, W. T., & Hauser, M. D. (2004). Computational constraints on syntactic processing in a nonhuman primate. Science 303: 377-380.

Gentner, T. et al. (2006). Recursive syntactic pattern learning by songbirds. Nature 440: 1204-1207.

Pinker, S. & Jackendoff, R. (2005). The faculty of language: What's special about it? Cognition 95, 201-236.

Sep. 23: Words, symbols, and social cognition

Tomasello, M. (2007). If they're so good at grammar, then why don't they talk? Hints from apes' and humans' use of gestures. Language Learning and Development, 3, 133-156.

Hare, B., et al. (2002). The domestication of social cognition in dogs. Science 298: 1634-1636.

Kaminski, J., et al. (2004). Word learning in a domestic dog: Evidence for "fast mapping". Science 304: 1682-1683.

Sep. 30: Cultural transmission and evolution

Kirby, S. (2002). Learning, bottlenecks, and the evolution of recursive syntax. In Ted Briscoe (Ed.), Linguistic Evolution through Language Acquisition: Formal and Computational Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kalish, M., et al. (2007). Iterated learning: Intergenerational knowledge transmission reveals inductive biases. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 14: 288-294.

Tomasello, M. (1999). The cultural origins of human cognition. Chapter 1: A puzzle and a hypothesis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Part 2: Does the language you speak affect the way you see the world?

Oct. 7: The Whorf hypothesis

Sapir, E. (1929). The status of linguistics as a science. Language 5, 207-214 (excerpt: p. 209).

Whorf, Benjamin (1956). Science and linguistics. In J. B. Carroll (Ed.) Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (pp. 207-219). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kay, P. & Kempton, W. (1984). What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? American Anthropologist, 86, 65-79.

[optional but fun] Pullum, G. (1991). The great Eskimo vocabulary hoax. University of Chicago Press. pp. 159-171.

Oct. 14: Color

Davidoff J. et al. (1999). Colour categories in a stone-age tribe. Nature, 398, 203-204.

Kay, P. & Regier, T. (2006). Language, thought, and color: recent developments. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 51-54.

Regier, T. et al. (2007). Color naming reflects optimal partitions of color space. PNAS, 104, 1436-1441.

Oct. 21: The lateralized Whorf hypothesis

Gilbert, A. et al. (2006). Whorf hypothesis is supported in the right visual field but not the left. PNAS, 103, 489-494.

Gilbert, A. et al. (2008). Support for lateralization of the Whorf effect beyond the realm of color discrimination. Brain and Language, 105, 91-98.

Franklin, A. et al. (2008). Lateralization of categorical perception of color changes with color term acquisition. PNAS, 105, 18221-18225.

Oct 28: Space

Majid, A. et al. (2004). Can language restructure cognition? The case for space. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 8: 108-114.

Hespos, S. & Spelke, E. (2004). Conceptual precursors to language. Nature, 430, 453-456.

Nov. 4: Number

Gordon, P. (2004). Numerical cognition without words: Evidence from Amazonia. Science 306, 496-499.

Pica, P. et al. (2004). Exact and approximate arithmetic in an Amazonian indigene group. Science, 306, 499-503.

Butterworth, B. et al. (2008). Numerical thought with and without words: Evidence from indigenous Australian children. PNAS, 105, 13179-13184.

Nov. 11: Veterans day

Nov. 18: Gender

Boroditsky, L., et al. (2003). Sex, syntax, and semantics. In Gentner, D. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (Eds.) Language in mind: Advances in the study of language and thought (pp. 61-79). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Vigliocco, G., et al. (2005). Grammatical gender effects on cognition: Implications for language learning and language use. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 134, 501-520.

Nov. 25: Thanksgiving break

Dec. 2: Pirahã

Everett, D. (2005). Cultural constraints on grammar and cognition in Pirahã: Another look at the design features of human language. Current Anthropology 46: 621-646.

Recursion and human thought: Why the Pirahã don't have numbers. A talk with Daniel L. Everett. Edge.org, 2007. (Be sure to continue to the following page of commentary.)

Dec. 9: Paper presentations