Speak Before You Think

After reading Atkins and Levin's dissection of the disparate uses of the semantically similar "shake" verbs, Haspelmath's discussion of morphological structure, and Slobin's comparison of verb-framed and satellite-framed languages in frog stories, I found myself most curious about how these particular differences between languages might influence cognition across cultures.  As a bilingual speaker of English and Cantonese, I've often wondered the extent to which the two languages' structures and semantics shift my way of thinking when I switch from one language to the other (especially given their high linguistic distance), and this week's papers introduced a number of technical concepts which could serve as interesting points of entry to this question.

One example which particularly struck me in the Atkins and Levin reading was the linguists' brief discussion of blushing as a verb.  Comparing the Dutch blozen to the Italian arrossire, they note that while the two words are generally considered "translation equivalents," the former expresses a state (i.e., having a blush), while the latter describes a transformation from one state to another (i.e., the act of blushing).  Thus, while semantically close, they are more distant syntactically.  With more data on similar verbs which imply state-of-being as well as change (such as smile, pale, and scowl), perhaps we could determine whether this difference in expression persists through the two languages and ultimately indicates certain differences in worldview between the two cultures.

I also found Haspelmath's investigation of compounding across languages quite intriguing.  After providing a number of examples of compounds in English, he explains that while the combination of two nouns (N + N) is very productive in English, combinations of verbs and nouns (V + N and N + V), or incorporations, are far less common.  In comparison, polysynthetic languages (which heavily use morphemes) are extremely productive in their use of incorporations as well as other types of compounds; German (perhaps notoriously) epitomizes this high productivity in compounding words, from Haspelmath's example of Wasch-maschine (wash + machine = washing machine) to Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften (which means "insurance companies providing legal protection" and is, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the longest German word in everyday use).  I would be very interested in exploring potential differences in ways speakers of polysynthetic languages and speakers of less morpheme-heavy languages approach identifying or describing new or unfamiliar concepts.

Similarly, Slobin's analysis of verb-framed versus satellite-framed languages provides a possible starting point for delving into deeper cultural differences.  While V-framed languages focus on path (i.e., the Spanish sale, or "exit"), S-framed on manner (i.e., the Mandarin fēi chū, or "fly out") when describing motion.  Furthermore, though V-framed languages attempt to "compensate" for lack of manner, S-framed languages augment manner, using adverbs to place an even heavier focus on it.  What might these facts indicate about the cultures' approaches to action?

I would love to hear your thoughts and insights on the subject of language and cognition!