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    Re: language and spatio-temporal orientation
    From: Patrick Goold
    Date: 2010 Jul 26, 11:12 -0400
    Yes, I agree that with respect to her larger point, that language precedes the thought and makes it possible, she has not made her case.  These observations are consistent with a direction of influence in the opposite direction and with, what I think is most likely, a interplay between the two in which the answer to the question of priority differs with different cases.

    My interest was piqued  by the specific claim that speakers of languages that use cardinal directions rather than relative direction terms "are remarkably good at staying oriented and keeping track of where they are, even in unfamiliar landscapes. They perform navigational feats scientists once thought were beyond human capabilities."  It suggested to me a discipline I might impose on myself privately.  Since English has several vocabularies for  direction terms, I could choose to think like a Pormpuraaw as much as possible:  "'Honey, have you seen my car keys?' "Yes, they are on the counter NNE of the kitchen sink.'" The goal would be to improve my sense of orientation in the larger environment.  If it worked, it wouldn't support the 'language precedes thought' thesis.  It might only aid attention to features antecedently available to thought.  But it would be useful to me either way.

    The extension of this idea to time I am still chewing on.

    On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 10:12 AM, Patrick Goold <goold@vwc.edu> wrote:
    Saturday's on-line edition of the Wall Street Journal (Europe) contained an interesting short article on new empirical studies of the relationship between language and thought.  It contained the following example of linguistic differences in ways of talking about direction that I think would be of interest to many on nav-list:

    For example, in Pormpuraaw, a remote Aboriginal community in Australia, the indigenous languages don't use terms like "left" and "right." Instead, everything is talked about in terms of absolute cardinal directions (north, south, east, west), which means you say things like, "There's an ant on your southwest leg." To say hello in Pormpuraaw, one asks, "Where are you going?", and an appropriate response might be, "A long way to the south-southwest. How about you?" If you don't know which way is which, you literally can't get past hello.

    About a third of the world's languages (spoken in all kinds of physical environments) rely on absolute directions for space. As a result of this constant linguistic training, speakers of such languages are remarkably good at staying oriented and keeping track of where they are, even in unfamiliar landscapes. They perform navigational feats scientists once thought were beyond human capabilities. This is a big difference, a fundamentally different way of conceptualizing space, trained by language.

    Differences in how people think about space don't end there. People rely on their spatial knowledge to build many other more complex or abstract representations including time, number, musical pitch, kinship relations, morality and emotions. So if Pormpuraawans think differently about space, do they also think differently about other things, like time?

    To find out, my colleague Alice Gaby and I traveled to Australia and gave Pormpuraawans sets of pictures that showed temporal progressions (for example, pictures of a man at different ages, or a crocodile growing, or a banana being eaten). Their job was to arrange the shuffled photos on the ground to show the correct temporal order. We tested each person in two separate sittings, each time facing in a different cardinal direction. When asked to do this, English speakers arrange time from left to right. Hebrew speakers do it from right to left (because Hebrew is written from right to left).

    Pormpuraawans, we found, arranged time from east to west. That is, seated facing south, time went left to right. When facing north, right to left. When facing east, toward the body, and so on. Of course, we never told any of our participants which direction they faced. The Pormpuraawans not only knew that already, but they also spontaneously used this spatial orientation to construct their representations of time. And many other ways to organize time exist in the world's languages. In Mandarin, the future can be below and the past above. In Aymara, spoken in South America, the future is behind and the past in front.

    The entire article can be found here.

    Best regards,
    Patrick
    --
    Dr. Patrick Goold
    Department of Philosophy
    Virginia Wesleyan College
    Norfolk, VA 23502
    757 455 3357



    --
    Dr. Patrick Goold
    Department of Philosophy
    Virginia Wesleyan College
    Norfolk, VA 23502
    757 455 3357
       
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