Reading for M 12/6: Gordon (2004) and Frank et al. (2008)

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For Monday 12/6, please read the following two article, which can be downloaded from the Readings section of this website:

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

Frank, Michael C., Daniel L. Everett, Evelina Fedorenko & Edward Gibson. 2008. Number as a cognitive technology: Evidence from Pirahã language and cognition. Cognition 108: 819-824.

Both of these papers pick up on one of our observations from Friday’s class, concerning the Piraha language’s lack of exact numeral terms.  These authors go on to explore the consequences of this fact for the Piraha people’s ability to reason numerically.  So, we have another experimental exploration of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.

Reading for F 12/3: Colapinto (2007)

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For Friday 12/3, please read the following article, which can be downloaded from the Readings section of this website:

Colapinto, John. 2007, Aug. 16. The interpreter. The New Yorker.

As I mentioned in class, the article describes recent research investigating the language of the Piraha, an indigenous group of the Amazon.  In particular, it has been claimed that (1) the Piraha language poses serious problems for Chomsky’s theory of Universal Grammar, and (2) the Piraha language and people provide further evidence for linguistic determinism.  In our next few class meetings, we will investigate both of these claims more closely.

Reading for W 12/1: Boroditsky (2001)

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For Wednesday 12/1, please read the following article, which can be downloaded from the Readings section of this website:

Boroditsky, Lera. 2oo1. Does Language Shape Thought?: Mandarin and English Speakers’ Conceptions of Time. Cognitive Psychology 43: 1-22.

Note:  In pgs. 8-18 of the article, the author describes three different psychological experiments that she conducted with her colleagues.  For each experiment, I advise that you skip the ‘Method’ section, and move straight ahead to the ‘Results’ and ‘Discussion’ section.  The ‘Method’ sections contain some rather technical discussion about experimental design, which is not necessary for you to comprehend the article.  Also, don’t worry too much about the statistics that appear in the ‘Results’ sections–just try to get an overall picture of how the experiments turned out.

Reading for M 11/29: Whitney (1998), Ch. 4 (pgs. 114-127) and Pullum (1989)

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For Monday 11/29, please read pgs. 114-127 of the following book chapter, which can be downloaded from the Readings section of this website:

Whitney, Paul. 1998. The Psychology of Language, Chapter 4 (‘Theories of the Language-Thought Relationship’).

Also, please read the following (extremely short) article:

Pullum, Geoffrey K. 1989 The great Eskimo vocabulary hoax. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 7: 275-281

UPDATED: Reading for M 11/22: Devlin 1997, Ch. 9 (pgs. 208-235)

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(Note:  due to the cancellation of this Friday’s (11/19) class, the following reading is now assigned for Monday 11/22.)

For Monday 11/22, please read pgs. 208-235 of the following book chapter, which can be downloaded from the Readings section of this website:

Devlin, Keith. 1997. Goodbye Descartes: The End of Logic and the Search for a New Cosmology of the Mind, Chapter 9 (‘Verbal Tangoes’).

Reading for W 11/17: Devlin (1997), Ch. 7 (pgs. 143-149, 160-172)

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For Wednesday 11/17, please read pgs. 143-149 and pgs. 160-172 of the following, which can be downloaded from the Readings section of this website:

Devlin, Keith. 1997. Goodbye Descartes: The End of Logic and the Search for a New Cosmology of the Mind, Chapter 7 (‘Machines That Think’).

(Note:  pgs. 154-160 are optional, though highly recommended.  Also, those of you with some background in formal logic and reasoning will enjoy reading the chapter in its entirety.)

Midterm Exam scheduled for W 11/10

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As I mentioned in yesterday’s class, your second midterm exam will be next Wednesday, November 10.

The exam will cover material from our readings and lectures pertaining to the following topics:  sentence comprehension, sentence production, language and the brain, as well as the critical period in language development, and pidgins/creole languages.  The emphasis will be on the first three topics.