Publications

Abstract

Taal der zintuigen gaat over de invloed van taal en cultuur op zintuiglijke waarnemingen. Hoe omschrijf je wat je ziet, voelt, proeft of ruikt? In sommige culturen zijn er veel verschillende woorden voor kleur, in andere culturen juist weer heel weinig. Worden we geboren met deze verschillende kleurgroepen? En bepaalt hoe je ergens over praat ook wat je waarneemt?

Abstract

Concepts are so fundamental to human cognition that Fodor declared the heart of a cognitive science to be its theory of concepts. To study concepts, though, cognitive scientists need to be able to identify some. The prevailing assumption has been that they are revealed by words such as triangle, table, and robin. But languages vary dramatically in how they carve up the world with names. Either ordinary concepts must be heavily language dependent, or names cannot be a direct route to concepts. We asked speakers of English, Dutch, Spanish, and Japanese to name a set of 36 video clips of human locomotion and to judge the similarities among them. We investigated what name inventories, name extensions, scaling solutions on name similarity, and scaling solutions on nonlinguistic similarity from the groups, individually and together, suggest about the underlying concepts. Aggregated naming data and similarity solutions converged on results distinct from individual languages.

Abstract

Information structure is a subfield of linguistic research dealing with the ways speakers encode instructions to the hearer on how to process the message relative to their temporary mental states. To this end, sentences are segmented into parts conveying known and yet-unknown information, usually labeled ‘topic’ and ‘focus.’ Many languages have developed specialized grammatical and lexical means of indicating this segmentation.

Abstract

The present study examines young children's uses of semantically specific and general relational containment terms (e.g. in, enter) in Hindi and Tzeltal, and the extent to which their usage patterns are influenced by input frequency. We hypothesize that if children have a preference for relational terms that are semantically specific, this will be reflected in early acquisition of more semantically specific expressions and underextension of semantically general ones, regardless of the distributional patterns of use of these terms in the input. Our findings however show a strong role for input frequency in guiding children's patterns of use of containment terms in the two languages. Yet language-specific lexicalization patterns play a role as well, since object-specific containment verbs are used as early as the semantically general 'enter' verb by children acquiring Tzeltal.

Abstract

The human language processor is conceived as a system that consists of several interrelated subsystems. Each subsystem performs a specific task in the complex process of language comprehension and production. A subsystem receives a particular input, performs certain specific operations on this input and yields a particular output. The subsystems can be characterized in terms of the transformations that relate the input representations to the output representations. An important issue in describing the language processing system is to identify the subsystems and to specify the relations between the subsystems. These relations can be conceived in two different ways. In one conception the subsystems are autonomous. They are related to each other only by the input-output channels. The operations in one subsystem are not affected by another system. The subsystems are modular, that is they are independent. In the other conception, the different subsystems influence each other. A subsystem affects the processes in another subsystem. In this conception there is an interaction between the subsystems.

Abstract

An inference is defined as the information that is not expressed explicitly by the text but is derived on the basis of the understander's knowledge and is encoded in the mental representation of the text. Inferencing is considered as a central component in discourse understanding. Experimental methods to detect inferences, established findings, and some developments are reviewed. Attention is paid to the relation between inference processes and the brain.

Abstract

To what extent are the planning processes involved in producing sentences fine-tuned to grammatical properties of specific languages? In this chapter we survey the small body of cross-linguistic research that bears on this question, focusing in particular on recent evidence from eye-tracking studies. Because eye-tracking methods provide a very fine-grained temporal measure of how conceptual and linguistic planning unfold in real time, they serve as an important complement to standard psycholinguistic methods. Moreover, the advent of portable eye-trackers in recent years has, for the first time, allowed eye-tracking techniques to be used with language populations that are located far away from university laboratories. This has created the exciting opportunity to extend the typological base of vision-based psycholinguistic research and address key questions in language production with new language comparisons.

Abstract

Most research focuses function of gesture independent of its link to the speech it accompanies and the coexpressive functions it has together with speech. This chapter instead approaches gesture in relation to its communicative function in relation to speech, and demonstrates how it is shaped by the linguistic encoding of a speaker’s message. Drawing on crosslinguistic research with adults and children as well as bilinguals on iconic/pointing gesture production it shows that the specific language speakers use modulates the rate and the shape of the iconic gesture production of the same events. The findings challenge the claims aiming to understand gesture’s function for “thinking only” in adults and during development.

Abstract

It has long been hypothesised that the human faculty to acquire a language is in some way encoded in our genetic program. However, only recently has genetic evidence been available to begin to substantiate the presumed genetic basis of language. Here we review the first data from molecular genetic studies showing association between gene variants and language disorders (specific language impairment, speech sound disorder, developmental dyslexia), we discuss the biological function of these genes, and we further speculate on the more general question of how the human genome builds a brain that can learn a language.

Abstract

Relatively little work has examined the function of gaze in interaction. Previous research has mainly addressed issues such as next speaker selection (e.g. Lerner 2003) or engagement and disengagement in the conversation (Goodwin 1981). It has looked for gaze behavior in relation to the roles participants are enacting locally, (e.g., speaker or hearer) and in relation to the unit “turn” in the turn taking system (Goodwin 1980, 1981; Kendon 1967). In his seminal work Kendon (1967) claimed that “there is a very clear and quite consistent pattern, namely, that [the speaker] tends to look away as he begins a long utterance, and in many cases somewhat in advance of it; and that he looks up at his interlocutor as the end of the long utterance approaches, usually during the last phase, and he continues to look thereafter.” Goodwin (Goodwin 1980) introducing the listener into the picture proposed the following two rules: Rule1: A speaker should obtain the gaze of his recipient during the course of a turn of talk. Rule2: a recipient should be gazing at the speaker when the speaker is gazing at the hearer. Rossano’s work (2005) has suggested the possibility of a different level of order for gaze in interaction: the sequential level. In particular he found that gaze withdrawal after sustained mutual gaze tends to occur at sequence possible completion and if both participants withdraw the sequence is complete. By sequence here we refer to a unit that is structured around the notion of adjacency pair. The latter refers to two turns uttered by different speakers orderly organized (first part and second part) and pair type related (greeting-greeting, question-answer). These two turns are related by conditional relevance (Schegloff 1968) that is to say that the first part requires the production of the second and the absence of the latter is noticeable and accountable. Question-anwers are very typical examples of adjacency pairs. In this paper we compare the use of gaze in question-answer sequences in three different populations: Italians, speakers of Mayan Tzeltal (Mexico) and speakers of Yeli Ndye (Russel Island, Papua New Guinea). Relying mainly on dyadic interactions and ordinary conversation we will provide a comparison of the occurrence of gaze in each turn (to compare with the claims of Goodwin and Kendon) and we will describe whether gaze has any effect on the other participant response and whether it persists also during the answer. The three languages and cultures that will be compared here belong to three different continents and have been previously described as potentially following opposite rules: for speakers of Italian and Yeli Ndye unproblematic and preferred engagement of mutual gaze while for speakers of Tzeltal strong mutual gaze avoidance. This paper tries to provide an accurate description of their gaze behavior in this specific type of sequential conversation.

Abstract

One of the most conspicuous ways in which people distribute agency among each other is by asking another for help. Natural languages give people a range of forms to do this, the distinctions among which have consequences for how agency is distributed. Forms such as imperatives (e.g. ‘pass the salt’) and recurrent types of interrogatives (e.g. ‘can you pass the salt?’) designate another person as the doer of the action. In contrast to this, impersonal deontic statements (e.g. ‘it is necessary to get the salt’) express the need for an action without tying it to any particular individual. This can generate interactions in which the identity of the doer must be sorted out among participants, allowing us to observe the distribution of agency in vivo. The case of impersonal deontic statements demonstrates the importance of grammar as a resource for managing human action and sociality.

Abstract

The use of the imperative for requesting has been mostly explained on the basis of estimations of social distance, relative power, and entitlement. More recent research, however, has identified other selection factors to do with the functional and sequential relation of the action requested to the trajectory of the ongoing interaction. In everyday activities among family and friends, the imperative is typically warranted by an earlier commitment of the requestee to a joint project or shared goal which the action requested contributes to. The chapter argues this to be the primary use of the imperative for requesting in Italian informal interaction, and distinguishes it from other uses of the imperative that do not conform to the predominant pattern. These other uses are of two kinds: (i) secondary, that is, less frequent and formally marked imperatives that still orient to social-interactional conditions supporting an expectation of compliance, and (ii) deviant, where the imperative is selected in deliberate violation of the social-interactional conditions that normally support it, attracting special attention and accomplishing more than just requesting. This study extends prior findings on the functional distribution of imperative requests and makes a point of relating and classifying distinct uses of a same form of action, offering new insights into more general aspects of language use such as markedness and normativity.

Abstract

Little is known about cultural differences in interactional practices with infants. The goal of this task is to document the nature and emergence of caregiver-infant interaction/ communication in different cultures. There are two tasks: Task 1 – a brief documentation about the culture under investigation with respect to infant-caregiver interaction and parental beliefs. Task 2 – the “decorated room”, a task designed to elicit infant and caregiver.

Abstract

The goal of this task is to investigate emotional categories across linguistic and cultural boundaries. There are three core tasks. In order to conduct this task you will need emotional vocalisation stimuli on your computer and you must translate the scenarios at the end of this entry into your local language.

Abstract

This chapter describes how speakers access words from the mental lexicon. Lexical access is a crucial
component in the process of transforming thoughts into speech. Some theories consider lexical access to be
strictly serial and discrete, while others view this process as being cascading or even interactive, i.e. the different
sub-levels influence each other. We discuss some of the evidence in favour and against these viewpoints, and
also present arguments regarding the ongoing debate on how words are selected for production. Another important
issue concerns the access to morphologically complex words such as derived and inflected words, as well as
compounds. Are these accessed as whole entities from the mental lexicon or are the parts assembled online? This
chapter tries to provide an answer to that question as well.

Abstract

The present paper looks at semantic interference and gender congruency effects during bilingual picture-word naming. According to Costa, Miozzo & Caramazza (1999), only the activation from lexical nodes within a language is considered during lexical selection. If this is accurate, these findings should uphold with respect to semantic and gender/determiner effects even though the distractors are in another language. In the present study three effects were found, (1) a main effect of language, (2) semantic effects for both target language and non-target language distractors, and (3) gender congruency effects for targets with target-language distractors only. These findings are at odds with the language-specific proposal of Costa et al. (1999). Implications of these findings are discussed.

Abstract

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 22, pp. 14879–14882, © 2001, Elsevier Ltd.

Abstract

Humans express emotional information in their facial expressions and body movements, as well as in their voice. In this chapter we consider the neural processing of a specific kind of vocal expressions, non-verbal emotional vocalizations e.g. laughs and sobs. We outline evidence, from patient studies and functional imaging studies, for both emotion specific and more general processing of emotional information in the voice. We relate these findings to evidence for both basic and dimensional accounts of the representations of emotion. We describe in detail an fMRI study of positive and negative non-verbal expressions of emotion, which revealed that prefrontal areas involved in the control of oro-facial movements were also sensitive to different kinds of vocal emotional information.

Abstract

The basic idea behind this task is to find out how languages encode basic shape distinctions such as dimensionality, axial geometry, relative size, etc. More specifically, we want to find out (i) which formal means are used cross linguistically to encode basic shape distinctions, and (ii) which are the semantic distinctions that are made in this domain. In languages with many shape-classifiers, these distinctions are encoded (at least partially) in classifiers. In other languages, positional verbs, descriptive modifiers, such as “flat”, “round”, or nouns such as “cube”, “ball”, etc. might be the preferred means. In this context, we also want to investigate what other “grammatical work” shapeencoding expressions possibly do in a given language, e.g. unitization of mass nouns, or anaphoric uses of shape-encoding classifiers, etc. This task further seeks to determine the role of shape-related parameters which underlie the design of objects in the semantics of the system under investigation.

Abstract

Kilivila, the Austronesian language of the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea, has a rich inventory of terms - nouns, verbs, adjectives and idiomatic phrases and expressions - to precisely refer to, and to differentiate emotions and inner feelings. This paper describes how the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea deal with the public display of emotions. Forms of emotion control in public encounters are discussed and explained on the basis of ritual communication which pervades the Trobrianders' verbal and non-verbal behaviour. Especially highlighted is the Trobrianders' metalinguistic concept of "biga sopa" with its important role for emotion control in encounters that may run the risk of escalating from argument and conflict to aggression and violence.

Abstract

This article provides a brief introduction into field research, its aims, its methods and the various phases of fieldwork.

Abstract

This paper reports on the results of my research on the lexical means Kilivila offers its speakers to refer to emotions and inner feelings. Data were elicited with 18 “Ekman’s faces” in which photos of the faces of one woman and two men illustrate the allegedly universal basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise) and with film stimuli staging standard emotions. The data are discussed on the basis of the following research questions: * How “effable” are they or do we observe ineffability – the difficulty of putting experiences into words – within the domain of emotions? * Do consultants agree with one another in how they name emotions? * Are facial expressions or situations better cues for labeling?

Abstract

This project aims to investigate how speakers of various languages in indigenous cultures verbally reason about moral issues. The ways in which a solution for a moral problem is found, phrased and justified will be taken as the basis for researching reasoning processes that manifest themselves verbally in the speakers’ arguments put forward to solve a number of moral problems which will be presented to them in the form of unfinished story plots or scenarios that ask for a solution. The plots chosen attempt to present common problems in human society and human behaviour. They should function to elicit moral discussion and/or moral arguments in groups of consultants of at least three persons.

Abstract

This paper deals with the dramatic environmental, social and cultural changes on the Trobriand Islands which I experienced during 16 long- and short-term fieldtrips from 1982 to 2012. I first report on the climate change I experienced there over the years and provide a survey about the demographic changes on the Trobriand Islands – highlighting the situation in Tauwema, my village of residence on Kaile’una Island. Finally I report on the social and cultural impact these dramatic changes have for the Trobriand Islanders and their culture.

Abstract

This paper presents a project which tests the hypothesis of the universality of facial expressions of emotions crossculturally and crosslinguistically. First results are presented which contradict the hypothesis.

Abstract

No idea is older in the history of linguistics than the thought that there is, somehow hidden underneath the surface of sentences, a form or a structure which provides a semantic analysis and lays bare their logical structure. In Plato’s Cratylus the theory was proposed, deriving from Heraclitus’ theory of explanatory underlying structure in physical nature, that words contain within themselves bits of syntactic structure giving their meanings. The Stoics held the same view and maintained moreover that every sentence has an underlying logical structure, which for them was the Aristotelian subject- predicate form. They even proposed transformational processes to derive the surface from the deep structure. The idea of a semantically analytic logical form underlying the sentences of every language kept reappearing in various guises at various times. Quite recently it re-emerged under the name of generative semantics.

Abstract

The task is designed to elicit vocabulary for simple sounds. The primary goal is to establish how people describe sound and what resources the language provides generally for encoding this domain. More specifically: (1) whether there is dedicated vocabulary for encoding simple sound contrasts and (2) how much consistency there is within a community in descriptions. This develops on materials used in The language of sound

Abstract

The current study examines, for the first time, the viewpoint preferences of signing children in expressing spatial relations that require imposing a viewpoint (left-right, front-behind). We elicited spatial descriptions from deaf children (4–9 years of age) acquiring Turkish Sign Language (TİD) natively from their deaf parents and from adult native signers of TİD. Adults produced these spatial descriptions from their own viewpoint and from that of their addressee depending on whether the objects were located on the lateral or the sagittal axis. TİD-acquiring children, on the other hand, described all spatial configurations from their own viewpoint. Differences were also found between children and adults in the type of linguistic devices and how they are used to express such spatial relations.

Abstract

In this chapter, I review my EEG research on comprehending sentences in context from a pragmatics-oriented perspective. The review is organized around four questions: (1) When and how do extra-sentential factors such as the prior text, identity of the speaker, or value system of the comprehender affect the incremental sentence interpretation processes indexed by the so-called N400 component of the ERP? (2) When and how do people identify the referents for expressions such as “he” or “the review”, and how do referential processes interact with sense and syntax? (3) How directly pragmatic are the interpretation-relevant ERP effects reported here? (4) Do readers and listeners anticipate upcoming information? One important claim developed in the chapter is that the well-known N400 component, although often associated with ‘semantic integration’, only indirectly reflects the sense-making involved in structure-sensitive dynamic composition of the type studied in semantics and pragmatics. According to the multiple-cause intensified retrieval (MIR) account -- essentially an extension of the memory retrieval account proposed by Kutas and colleagues -- the amplitude of the word-elicited N400 reflects the computational resources used in retrieving the relatively invariant coded meaning stored in semantic long-term memory for, and made available by, the word at hand. Such retrieval becomes more resource-intensive when the coded meanings cued by this word do not match with expectations raised by the relevant interpretive context, but also when certain other relevance signals, such as strong affective connotation or a marked delivery, indicate the need for deeper processing. The most important consequence of this account is that pragmatic modulations of the N400 come about not because the N400 at hand directly reflects a rich compositional-semantic and/or Gricean analysis to make sense of the word’s coded meaning in this particular context, but simply because the semantic and pragmatic implications of the preceding words have already been computed, and now define a less or more helpful interpretive background within which to retrieve coded meaning for the critical word.

Abstract

This Field Manual entry has been superceded by the published version: Van Staden, M., & Majid, A. (2006). Body colouring task. Language Sciences, 28(2-3), 158-161. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2005.11.004.

Abstract

The linguistic category of irrealis does not show stable semantics across languages. This makes it difficult to formulate general statements about this category, and it has led some researchers to reject irrealis as a cross-linguistically valid category. In this paper we look at the semantics of the irrealis category of Yurakaré, an unclassified language spoken in central Bolivia, and compare it to irrealis semantics of a number of other languages. Languages differ with respect to the subcategories they subsume under the heading of irrealis. The variable subcategories are future tense, imperatives, negatives, and habitual aspect. We argue that the cross-linguistic variation is not random, and can be stated in terms of an implicational scale.

Abstract

Within the first few years of life, children acquire many of the building blocks of their native language. This not only involves knowledge about the linguistic structure of spoken language, but also knowledge about the way in which this linguistic structure surfaces in their speech input. In this chapter, we review how infants and toddlers cope with differences between speakers and accents. Within the context of milestones in early speech perception, we examine how voice and accent characteristics are integrated during language processing, looking closely at the advantages and disadvantages of speaker and accent familiarity, surface-level deviation between two utterances, variability in the input, and prior speaker exposure. We conclude that although deviation from the child’s standard can complicate speech perception early in life, young listeners can overcome these additional challenges. This suggests that early spoken language processing is flexible and adaptive to the listening situation at hand.

Abstract

The seemingly effortless switching between languages and the merging of two languages into a coherent utterance is a hallmark of bilingual language processing, and reveals the flexibility of human speech and skilled cognitive control. That skill appears to be available not only to speakers when they produce language-switched utterances, but also to listeners and readers when presented with mixed language information. In this chapter, we review electrophysiological studies in which Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) are derived from recordings of brain activity to examine the neurocognitive aspects of comprehending and producing mixed language. Topics we discuss include the time course of brain activity associated with language switching between single stimuli and language switching of words embedded in a meaningful sentence context. The majority of ERP studies report that switching between languages incurs neurocognitive costs, but –more interestingly- ERP patterns differ as a function of L2 proficiency and the amount of daily experience with language switching, the direction of switching (switching into L2 is typically associated with higher switching costs than switching into L1), the type of language switching task, and the predictability of the language switch. Finally, we outline some future directions for this relatively new approach to the study of language switching.