Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

Language and Thought289A few symbols may be similar inform to the meaning they signify, suchas the English words boom and pop.However, for most words, the connectionbetween the symbol and themeaning is completely arbitrary(Pinker, 1995). For example, ton is asmall word that stands for a vast quantity,whereas nanogram is a large wordthat stands for a very small quantity.Because the relationship between thesymbol and its meaning is arbitrary,language is tremendously flexible(Pinker, 1994). New words can be invented,such as podcast, metrosexual, and bling. And the meanings of words canchange and evolve, such as gay, stock market, and union.The meaning of these symbols is shared by others who speak the same language.That is, speakers of the same language agree on the connection between the soundand what it symbolizes. Consequently, a foreign language sounds like a stream ofmeaningless sounds because we do not share the memory of the connection betweenthe arbitrary sounds and the concrete meanings they symbolize.Further, language is a highly structured system that follows specific rules. Everylanguage has its own unique syntax, or set of rules for combining words. Althoughyou’re usually unaware of these rules as you’re speaking or writing, you immediatelynotice when a rule has been violated.The rules of language help determine the meaning that is being communicated.For example, word-order rules are very important in determining the meaning ofan English phrase. “The boy ate the giant pumpkin” has an entirely different meaningfrom “The giant pumpkin ate the boy.” In other languages, meaning may beconveyed by different rule-based distinctions, such as specific pronouns, the class orcategory of word, or word endings.Another important characteristic of language is that it is creative, or generative. Thatis, you can generate an infinite number of new and different phrases and sentences.A final important characteristic of human language is called displacement. You cancommunicate meaningfully about ideas, objects, and activities that are not physicallypresent. You can refer to activities that will take place in the future, that took place inthe past, or that will take place only if certain conditions are met (“If you get that promotion,maybe we can afford a new car”). You can also carry on a vivid conversationabout abstract ideas (“What is justice?”) or strictly imaginary topics (“If you were goingto spend a year in a space station orbiting Neptune, what would you bring along?”).American Sign LanguageAmerican Sign Language, usedby hearing-impaired people,meets all the formal requirementsfor language, includingsyntax, displacement, and generativity.The similarities betweenspoken language and sign languagehave been confirmed bybrain-imaging studies. The samebrain regions are activated inhearing people when they speakas in deaf people when they usesign language (Hickok & others,2001; Lubbadeh, 2005).The word duck does not look like aduck, walk like a duck, or quack like aduck, but refers to a duck all the same,because the members of a languagecommunity, as children, all memorizedthe pairing [between a sound and ameaning].STEVEN PINKER (1995)Giving Birth to a New Language In 1977, aspecial school for deaf children opened inManagua, Nicaragua. The children quicklydeveloped a system of gestures for communicatingwith one another. Over the past 30years, the system of gestures has evolvedinto a unique new language with its owngrammar and syntax—Idioma de SignosNicaragense (Senghas & others, 2004;Siegal, 2004). The birth of Nicaraguan SignLanguage is not a unique event. Recently,linguists Wendy Sandler and her colleagues(2006) at the University of Haifa documentedthe spontaneous development ofanother unique sign language, this one in aremote Bedouin village where a large numberof villagers share a form of hereditarydeafness (Fox, 2008). Like Nicaraguan SignLanguage, Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Languagehas its own syntax and grammaticalrules, which differ from other languages inthe region. The spontaneous evolution ofthese two unique sign languages vividlydemonstrates the human predisposition todevelop rule-based systems of communication(Fox, 2008).