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Related Concept Videos

Language and Cognition01:27

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Language serves as a bridge between ideas and communication, influencing how individuals perceive and interact with the world. Psychologists have long debated whether language shapes thought or vice versa. This discussion gained grip with Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf in the 1940s, who proposed that language determines thought, a concept known as linguistic determinism. They suggested that the vocabulary and structure of a language influence how its speakers think and perceive reality.
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Language, whether spoken, signed, or written, consists of specific components: lexicon and grammar. The lexicon is the vocabulary of a language, comprising its words. Grammar is the set of rules used to convey meaning through the lexicon. For example, English grammar adds “-ed” to most verbs to indicate past tense. Words are formed by combining phonemes, which are the basic sound units of a language. Different languages have different sets of phonemes (e.g., “ah” vs.
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Language is a unique communication system that uses words and systematic rules to organize and transmit information. Unlike other forms of communication, which may involve postures, movements, odors, or vocalizations, language relies on symbols and grammar. This makes human communication distinct from that of other species, who also communicate but do not use language in the same way humans do.
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Foreign Accent and Forensic Speaker Identification in Voice Lineups: The Influence of Acoustic Features Based on Prosody
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Language as an emergent group-level trait.

Lan Shuai1, Tao Gong2

  • 1Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,Johns Hopkins University,Baltimore,MD 21218.susan.shuai@gmail.comhttp://www.ece-jhu.org/

The Behavioral and Brain Sciences
|June 28, 2014
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Language emerges as a group-level trait, influenced by human group organization and social structures. This study explores how groups foster language and how language shapes social organization, offering a framework for future research on group traits.

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Area of Science:

  • Social Sciences
  • Linguistics
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • Understanding language as a group-level trait is crucial for explaining its evolution and function.
  • Existing definitions often focus on individual cognition, overlooking collective dynamics.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To propose and verify that language is an emergent group-level trait, following Smaldino's framework.
  • To introduce two facets for analyzing the interplay between group organization and language.

Main Methods:

  • Conceptual framework development based on Smaldino's definition of group-level traits.
  • Analysis of two proposed facets: group organization for language emergence and language's role in social organization.

Main Results:

  • Language is posited as an emergent property of human groups.
  • Two key facets demonstrate the reciprocal relationship between group structure and linguistic phenomena.

Conclusions:

  • The study supports language as a group-level trait, extending Smaldino's theory.
  • The proposed framework provides a foundation for future research on emergent group-level traits in social and linguistic contexts.