A semiotic theory of imagery processes with experiments on an Indo‐European and a Ural‐Altaic language: Do speakers of different languages experience different cognitive worlds?

Abstract

StrØmnes, F. J. A semiotic theory of imagery processes with experiments on an Indo‐European and a Ural‐Altaic language: Do speakers of different languages experience different cognitive worlds?Scand. J. Psychol., 1973, 14, 291–304.‐A theory of information transmission by symbol systems is presented. The theory is related to results on imagery and verbal behaviour found in the literature, and a new experiment is briefly reported. It is argued that information transmission can exclusively take place by the transmission of geometric isomorphs. Some of the conditions which must be fulfilled by a sign system which can transmit geometric isomorphs are pointed out. A supporting experiment, which purports to show that the underlying geometric systems of Ural‐Altaic (represented by Finnish) and Indo‐European (represented by Swedish) are strikingly different, is reported.

Occupational Accidents of Finnish-and Swedish-Speaking Workers in Finland: A Mental Model View

“…The results of this study are in line with earlier studies on mental odel formation (Str0mnes, 1973(Str0mnes, , 1974a(Str0mnes, , 1974b(Str0mnes, , 1974c showing that people speaking an Indo-European language base their thinking on such variables as movement and time. The Finns, who speak a Ural-Altaic language, concentrate more on static relations.…”

“…markers in the Finnish language (case endings) and the Swedish language (prepositions) refer to totally different structural spatial relations (Str0mnes, 1973(Str0mnes, , 1974c. The relations are overlearned by speakers of the respective languages (Str0mnes, 1974c).…”

“…Earlier studies based on the theory of symbol systems (Str0mnes, 1973(Str0mnes, , 1974a have shown that the lexical…”

Recent Advances in the Study of Linguistic Relativity in Historical Context: A Critical Assessment

“…So, speakers of a language without a set of true number words (Frank, Everett, Fedorenko, & Gibson, 2008) or who lack access to such words (Spaepen, Coppola, Spelke, Carey, & Goldin-Meadow, 2011) are not able to perform simple mathematical computations. Similar arguments have been made that minimal marking of counterfactuals creates difficulties with certain forms of reasoning (Bloom, 1981) and that certain types of temporal marking produce difficulties in workplace performance (Strømnes, 1973) and management of money (Chen, 2013;but see McWhorter, 2014). All these approaches treat language as a tool containing forms useful for certain types of cognitive behavior, and it is absence of this behavior that usually stimulates the linguistic analysis.…”

A minority with few occupational accidents: The case of Swedish-speaking Finns

“…The theory of symbol systems [Strùmnes, 1973;Lucy, 1997] suggests that people speaking different languages form differently structured mental models, and that these mental models affect behavior. The structure of language guides observation into factors for which the language in question has tools.…”