Are language and thought interdependent to the extent that only language makes intelligent thought possible?

List of contents:

I. Listofcontents

II. Paper: Are language and thought interdependent to the extent that only language makes intelligent thought possible?
1. What is intelligence?
2. What sets us apart from other animals?
3. Is language the key to intelligence or vice versa?
4. Foreign Language Learning and the Effect of Bilingualism
5. Conclusion

III. Bibliography

IV. Works cited

Are language and thought interdependent to the extent that only language makes intelligent thought possible? And what role does learning a foreign language play in the development of the young mind?

Anne-Katrin Clemens

Abstract

Learning a foreign language does not seem to affect semantic representations in the first language. But does it change cognition in any way? We do know that the brain accommodates a foreign language purely anatomically up to the age of twelve and we know that this heightened flexibility in our neurological pathways allows for more flexible combining of core-knowledge systems, thus giving an advantage in other cognitive areas. What we do not know is if it actually changes our perception of the world.

Human intelligence, without a doubt, surpasses that of other creatures known to mankind. We are also the only species known to possess highly developed language. These two facts seem to suggest that there is a relation between language and intelligence. The question is whether or not language and intelligence are interdependent to the extent that only language makes intelligent thought possible. In the course of this paper I will answer that question and show that, even though it is not the sole factor, language still plays an important role for intelligent thought. In explaining that I will also show the effects that learning a foreign language has on the development of the young mind.

1. What is intelligence?

In order to explain the role language plays for the development of intelligent thought, it is important to understand the basic concept of intelligence. Spearman (1927) defines intelligence as the "total mental energy at an individual's command and operating through the channel of specific ability". These abilities have been identified quite clearly by Guilford (1959) as cognition, memory, convergent thinking, divergent thinking and evaluation (Sandel, 4). According to Guilford, these five abilities are relatively independent from each other and can be developed varyingly strong, a theory that stands in direct contrast to Piaget's (1926) earlier theory that intellectual development is a process in which each stage or level builds upon the previous level (Sandel, 5). The probably most widely accepted theory is that of Jensen (1969) that intelligence, regardless of the specific abilities that have been coined, is a genetic potential and that the environment, which according to Jensen acts as a "threshold variable" that can keep a child from exploiting its full potential, but can never push him above said potential. Yet he recognizes the specific abilities and suggests that developing them aids the child in performing up to his genetic potential (Sandel, 6).

2. What sets us apart from other animals?

If we accept that intelligence is a genetic potential and know that the differences between humans and our closest living relatives, the chimps, is less than 10% of our genetic material, and with that "ten times smaller than that between mice and rats" (Lovgren, 2005), we have to ask ourselves what exactly it is that sets us apart from other animals.

In her paper What makes us smart? Core Knowledge and Natural Language, Spelke describes several studies that have been conducted in order to find that certain difference. Spelke's first assumption was that "whatever is unique to human cognition depends on unique features of our early-developing, core-knowledge systems", like representation of objects, navigation through spatial layouts or number sense (Spelke, 278). She refers to an experiment conducted by Wynn in 1992, which I will refer to as the hand puppet experiment.

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5-month-old infants were shown a stage with one single puppet, which was then hidden behind a screen. After that a second puppet was placed behind the screen, the action clearly visible to the infants. When the screen was lowered either one or two puppets were revealed. The time the infants spent looking at the display after the screen was lowered was measured and gave information about whether or not the infants were able to represent the two puppets in their minds. In the case of failure, they would have spent more time looking at the display showing two puppets, as this would have been new information. In the case of success, however, they would have spent more time looking at the display with only one puppet as they would have been able to represent the hidden puppet and the addition of the second puppet in their mind without ever having seen both of them together. The results of this experiment showed that the 5-month-old infants were indeed able to represent the puppets in their minds.

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An analogical experiment was conducted by Regolin and Vallortigara in 1995 with newly hatched chicks. The chicks spent their first day with a center-occluded object, in this case a triangle, and were thus imprinted on this object. On their second day they were placed in a new cage and faced with two objects, one being the full object and the other being the two visible ends of the occluded objects with a visible gap between them. In all cases the chicks approached the full object without gap making it clear that they were able to represent the whole object without having seen it before (Spelke, 283f.).

In other experiments, like natural geometry or number sense tasks, conducted to find differences between human infants and animals, results showed that there is no fundamental difference between human and nonhuman animal cognition. It is clear that even though humans do have early-developing, core-knowledge systems that are part of our intelligence, they are obviously not what sets us apart from other animals.

Since core-knowledge systems do not seem to be the key to human intelligence, Spelke suggests that it is our uniquely human combinatorial capacities that make the difference. Four of the main features of core-knowledge systems are that they are domain specific, task specific, encapsulated and isolated. With growing age, however, humans are able to combine these core-knowledge systems. Spelke proposes that this combinatorial capacity has none of the limits that the core-knowledge systems have and therefore allows us to combine flexibly all other abilities we share with other animals. Spelke calls this new capacity the "natural language" and says that "the cognitive endowment that gives rise to it is indeed unique to humans: the human language faculty" (Spelke, 291).

She explains this with an experiment carried out by Hermer and herself in 1994.

In a reorientation experiment by Cheng in 1986, it was proven that rats were able to reorient themselves in accord with the shape of the room or, as was shown in earlier tests, in accord with the colours of the walls, but never in accord with both features combined.

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(Spelke, 292, figure 10.9) (Spekle, 293, figure 10.10)

In 1994, Hermer and Spelke tested this in 1,5-2-year-old children and the result was the same as in Cheng's rat-reorientation experiment. Even though the children succeeded in tests involving colour but not geometrical shape, they failed to combine the information of the differently coloured walls with the shape of the rectangular room. Obviously, children, just as animals, lack the ability to combine different information flexibly, an ability which is developed in humans with growing age (Spelke, 293).

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