Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã

Everett, Daniel L.

doi:10.1086/431525

Cited by 957 publications

(240 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Dan Everett, a missionary turned linguist who has had very extensive experience of life among the Pirahã claims that their language lacks words or markers for conditionals, disjunctions, conjunctions, comparatives and quantifiers (Everett et al, 2005) 6 .…”

Section: East--asian Languages and Logical Thoughtmentioning

confidence: 99%

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On the Universality of Argumentative Reasoning

Mercier

2011

J Cogn Cult

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According to the argumentative theory of reasoning, humans have evolved reasoning abilities (usually known as 'system 2' or 'analytic' reasoning) for argumentative purposes. This implies that some reasoning skills should be universals. Such a claim seems to be at odd with findings from cross-cultural research. First, a wealth of research, following the work of Luria, has shown apparent difficulties for illiterate populations to solve simple but abstract syllogisms. It can be shown, however, that once they are willing to accept the pragmatics of the task, these participants can perform at or near ceiling. Second, historical, sociological and anthropological research has been used to claim that some Eastern cultures have not developed argumentation. These claims are the result of oversimplifications and of a selective view of the data. A closer looks reveals instead very elaborate forms of argumentation, in Chinese culture particularly. Third, cross-cultural psychologists have carried out an extensive research program aimed at showing that Easterners do not rely on the principle of non-contradiction and that they use holistic rather than analytic thinking. A review of these experiments shows that no qualitative difference emerges in the way Easterners and Westerners deal with argumentation and that in the proper context both populations can easily have recourse to holistic or analytic thinking. It is possible to conclude from this critical review that the reasoning skills involved in argumentation seem to be universal even though they can be used in different ways in various cultural contexts. 2Abstract. According to the argumentative theory of reasoning, humans have evolved reasoning abilities (usually known as 'system 2' or 'analytic' reasoning) for argumentative purposes. This implies that some reasoning skills should be universals. Such a claim seems to be at odd with findings from cross--cultural research. First, a wealth of research, following the work of Luria, has shown apparent difficulties for illiterate populations to solve simple but abstract syllogisms. It can be shown however that once they are willing to accept the pragmatics of the task, these participants can perform at or near ceiling. Second, historical, sociological and anthropological research has been used to claim that some Eastern cultures have not developed argumentation. These claims are the result of oversimplifications and of a selective view of the data. A closer looks reveals instead very elaborate forms of argumentation, in Chinese culture particularly. Third, cross--cultural psychologists have carried out an extensive research program aimed at showing that Easterners do not rely on the principle of non--contradiction and that they use holistic rather than analytic thinking. A review of these experiments shows that no qualitative difference emerges in the way Easterners and Westerners deal with argumentation and that in the proper context both populations can easily have recourse to holistic or analytic thinking. It is possi...

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Section: East--asian Languages and Logical Thoughtmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, that does not stop them both from understanding arguments (Everett once had to argue his way out of a potentially lethal situation, Everett, 2008, p. 64) and from frequently arguing effectively with him or between themselves (Everett, 2008;Everett et al, 2005).…”

Section: East--asian Languages and Logical Thoughtmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Universality of Argumentative Reasoning

Mercier

2011

J Cogn Cult

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“…The primary attractors were the languages of the communities, the products of innovative collective inventions and socialdevelopmental processes, which 'stretched' the plastic cognitive capacities of individuals in novel directions. Our suggestion that language was not only shaped by, but also shaped general cognition, making it more 'linguistic', is based on the profound and reciprocal relations between language and culturally constructed modes of cognition, as documented, for example, by Everett [23] among the Pirahã, as well as on evidence suggesting that the culturally invented practice of literacy affects categorical thinking [24,25]. However, such bi-directional interactions leave open the question as to the nature of cognitive features that had become genetically accommodated: the accommodated changes that were driven by the cultural evolution of language may have been domain-general, for example, improved general memory or better analogical reasoning, or they could have been language-specific.…”

Section: Evolutionary Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 93%

The co-evolution of language and emotions

Jablonka

Ginsburg

Dor

2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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We argue that language evolution started like the evolution of reading and writing, through cultural evolutionary processes. Genuinely new behavioural patterns emerged from collective exploratory processes that individuals could learn because of their brain plasticity. Those cultural-linguistic innovative practices that were consistently socially and culturally selected drove a process of genetic accommodation of both general and language-specific aspects of cognition. We focus on the affective facet of this culture-driven cognitive evolution, and argue that the evolution of human emotions coevolved with that of language. We suggest that complex tool manufacture and alloparenting played an important role in the evolution of emotions, by leading to increased executive control and intersubjective sensitivity. This process, which can be interpreted as a special case of self-domestication, culminated in the construction of human-specific social emotions, which facilitated informationsharing. Once in place, language enhanced the inhibitory control of emotions, enabled the development of novel emotions and emotional capacities, and led to a human mentality that departs in fundamental ways from that of other apes. We end by suggesting experimental approaches that can help in evaluating some of these proposals and hence lead to better understanding of the evolutionary biology of language and emotions.

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“…That is, we might postulate that there is some kind of correlation between languages and the cultural environment in which they live. This is the viewpoint of many modern relativists (e.g., Everett 2005Everett , 2010. I think that this is mostly wrong, apart from relatively superficial facts concerning the richness of some parts of the substantive lexicon.…”

Section: Languages As Language Organs: Comparing Languages and Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

What are Languages? A Biolinguistic Perspective

Mendívil-Giró

2014

Open Linguistics

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Abstract:The goal of the present contribution is to explore what kinds of objects languages are from a biolinguistic point of view. I define the biolinguistic point of view as a naturalistic study of languages and I show that from this point of view, languages are human language organs, that is, they are natural objects. However, languages change over time; therefore, they are also historically modified objects. Considering that natural organisms are historically modified natural objects, I look for inspiration in evolutionary theory to better specify what kinds of objects languages are and how they change and diversify. I conclude that every language is a 'unique evolutionary history' within a restricted space of design. This conclusion means that although the structure of languages reveals aspects of formal elegance and aspects of functional efficiency, there are no arguments to state that these aspects are manifested more or less intensely in some languages than in others. Then their formal and functional aspects are part of what is common to all languages, while variable parts of language are a reflection of the essentially historical nature of the lexical interface between the components of our language organs.

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Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã

Cited by 957 publications

References 27 publications

On the Universality of Argumentative Reasoning

On the Universality of Argumentative Reasoning

The co-evolution of language and emotions

What are Languages? A Biolinguistic Perspective

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