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TAMU PSYC 689 - Pavlenko - Biling and Thought 2005
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1Bilingualism and ThoughtAneta PavlenkoTemple UniversityAbstractThis chapter discusses the implications of recent theoretical and empirical investigationsin linguistic relativity for the study of bilingualism. It starts out with a discussion of newdevelopments in the study of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and then offers a framework forthe study of bilingualism and thought from a neo-Whorfian perspective. Subsequently, it outlinesnine areas where current empirical inquiry either illuminates thought processes of adult bi- andmultilingual individuals or offers productive directions for future studies of bilingualism andthought. The chapter ends with a discussion of ways in which research with bilingual individualscan offer unique contributions to the study of linguistic relativity and to the understanding of theinteraction between language and thought.Traditionally, research on bilingualism and cognition has focused on the implications ofbilingualism for individual cognitive processes (cf. Bialystok, present volume). The goal of this type ofinquiry is to show the impact of bilingualism per se, rather than to examine how particular languages –and combinations of languages – may influence the thought processes of their speakers. Studies of thebilingual mental lexicon have commonly focused on the level of lexical processing, rarely touching uponlinguistic and cultural specificity of conceptual representation. As a result, research in bilingualism hasaccumulated an impressive amount of knowledge on lexical and cognitive processing in bilingualindividuals but tells us little about the impact of cross-linguistic and cross-cultural differences on thoughtprocesses (Pavlenko, 1999). In turn, cross-linguistic studies of conceptual representation haveestablished numerous differences in conceptualization of space, time, or motion across speakers ofdifferent languages but do not clarify how divergent concepts may be represented in bi- or multilingualspeakers.2The goal of the present chapter is twofold. On the one hand, it aims to illuminate thoughtprocesses of bilingual individuals whose languages encode particular concepts in different ways. On theother, it aims to write bilingualism into the inquiry on linguistic relativity and to argue that an in-depthunderstanding of the relationship between language and thought is impossible without close attention toways in which multiple languages and forms of thought interact in the minds of bi- and multilingualindividuals. I will start out with a brief discussion of new approaches to the study of linguistic relativity,paying particular attention to recent reformulations of the terms ‘language’ and ‘thought’. Then, I willcritically survey existing proposals on the implications of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis for users of morethan one language and offer a framework for future studies of bilingualism and thought. Subsequently, Iwill outline nine areas where current empirical investigations either illuminate thought processes of adultbi- and multilinguals or offer productive directions for future inquiry. I will end by pointing to ways inwhich research with bilingual individuals can offer unique contributions to the study of linguistic relativityand, more generally, to the understanding of the interaction between language and thought. Throughoutthe discussion, I will use the terms bilingualism and multilingualism interchangeably to refer to the useof two or more languages by individual speakers and groups of speakers, as is common in the literaturein the field.Contemporary approaches to linguistic relativityIn the past fifteen years, there has been a new surge of interest in the theory of linguisticrelativity, otherwise known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. For Whorf,the “linguistic relativity principle” ... means, in informal terms, that users of markedlydifferent grammars are pointed by their grammars toward different types of observations anddifferent evaluations of externally similar acts of observation, and hence are not3equivalent as observers but must arrive at somewhat different views of the world. (Whorf, 1956: 221)The debates on linguistic relativity and on the writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (1956) and histeacher and mentor Edward Sapir (1921, 1929) have waxed and waned throughout the twentiethcentury. The 1960s and the 1970s, dominated by Chomskian generative linguistics, witnessed aprofound disillusionment with the theory. Only a few staunch supporters, most notably Dell Hymes,weathered the storm, while "most 'responsible' scholars have steered clear of relativism. It has becomea bête noire, identified with scholarly irresponsibility, fuzzy thinking, lack of rigor, and even immorality"(Lakoff, 1987: 304). The current impetus for investigations in linguistic relativity came from thegroundbreaking work of George Lakoff (1987), John Lucy (1992a,b; 1997a), Dan Slobin (1996,2000, 2001), and Stephen Levinson and associates (Bowerman & Levinson, 2001; Gumperz &Levinson, 1996; Levinson, 1996, 1997). While further on I will refer to these and other scholars asneo-Whorfians, I want to underscore that this label is not meant to imply that these scholars share acommon view of linguistic relativity or the relationship between language and thought. Rather, they sharea common interest in the ramifications of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and a desire to abandon thetraditional debate about the merits of linguistic determinism vs. linguistic relativity, a dichotomy whichoversimplifies and misinterprets Sapir and Whorf’s original arguments. Instead, neo-Whorfians forgenew, complex and nuanced, approaches to the study of ways in which different aspects of languagemay impact distinct modes of thought. They also acknowledge that some cognitive processes andmodes of thought may not be affected by language at all. As a result of these changes, recent years sawboth new sophisticated theoretical proposals and empirical advances in the study of the relationship4between language and thought (Bowerman & Levinson, 2001; Gumperz & Levinson, 1996; Lakoff,1987; Lucy, 1992a,b; 1997a; Niemeier & Dirven, 2000; Nuyts & Pederson, 1997; Pütz & Verspoor,2000). How are ‘language’ and ‘thought’ conceptualized in this inquiry? While traditional approachesto the study of linguistic relativity focus on structural differences between languages, somecontemporary scholars argue that language cannot be neatly reduced to structure and that structureshould be considered


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TAMU PSYC 689 - Pavlenko - Biling and Thought 2005

Course: Psyc 689-
Pages: 38
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