The idea that natural languages shape the way we think in different ways was popularized by Benjamin Whorf, but then fell out of favor for lack of empirical support. But now, a new wave of research has been shifting the tide back toward linguistic relativity. The recent research can be interpreted in different ways, some trivial, some implausibly radical, and some both plausible and interesting. We introduce two theses that would have important implications if true: Habitual Whorfianism and Ontological Whorfianism. (...) We argue that these offer the most promising interpretations of the emerging evidence. (shrink)

Learning depends on attention. The processes that cue attention in the moment dynamically integrate learned regularities and immediate contextual cues. This paper reviews the extensive literature on cued attention and attentional learning in the adult literature and proposes that these fundamental processes are likely significant mechanisms of change in cognitive development. The value of this idea is illustrated using phenomena in children's novel word learning.

What aspects of spatial relations influence speakers’ choice of locative? This article presents a study of static spatial descriptions from 24 languages. The study reveals two kinds of spatial terms evident cross‐linguistically: specific spatial terms and general spatial terms (GSTs). Whereas specific spatial terms—including English prepositions—occur in a limited range of situations, with concomitant specificity in their meaning, GSTs occur in all spatial descriptions (in languages that employ them). Because of the extreme differences in range of application, the two are (...) considered separately. A multidimensional scaling analysis is used with specific spatial terms to extract statistically valid similarities across the languages sampled. For GSTs, which have not been previously analyzed in the literature, a semantic analysis is proposed and experimentally validated. The results suggest the importance of geometry, function, and qualitative physics to the meanings of both kinds of spatial terms, although the details differ. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 25 Heft: 4 Seiten: 617-653.

Language research is currently in a state of flux. The phenomenon of language is not merely the topic of investigation in linguistics, it is examined by a multitude of scholars with different scientific backgrounds. In order to examine how these various disciplines approach language, a think-tank was founded in 2002, called DITO, Dynamisch Inter(-en trans)disciplinair onderzoek, or Dynamic Inter- (and trans)disciplinary Research. The think-tank is located at the Belgian Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Free University of Brussels). This book provides short introductory (...) articles to the language research conducted by some of the think-tank’s most important members, from within the point of view of the following 5 disciplines: philosophy of evolutionary biology, cognitive science, neuroscience, sign language research and artificial intelligence. (shrink)