Language and thought: talking, gesturing (and signing) about space

Abstract

Recent research has reopened debates about (neo)Whorfian claims that the language one speaks has an impact on how one thinks---long discounted by mainstream linguistics and anthropology alike. Some of the most striking evidence for such possible impact derives, not surprisingly, from understudied "exotic" languages and, somewhat more surprisingly, from multimodal and notably gestural practices in communities which speak them. In particular, some of my own work on GuuguYimithirr, a Paman language spoken by Aboriginal people in northeastern Australia, and on Tzotzil, a language spoken by Mayan peasants in southeastern Mexico, suggests strong connections between linguistic expressions of spatial relations, gestural practices in talking about location and motion, and cognitive representations of space---what have come to be called spatial "Frames of Reference." In this talk, I will present some of the evidence for such connections, and add to the mix evidence from an emerging, first generation sign language developed spontaneously in a single family by deaf siblings who have had contact with neither other deaf people nor any other sign language.