Ling 423/640G: Cognitive Linguistics
Ben Bergen
Assignment
3: Linguistic Relativism
Distributed: October
16, 2008
Due: October 23, 2008
Instructions: Please provide a
thoughtful yet succinct research proposal. Feel free to discuss any aspect of
the assignment with your classmates, especially if you are not a native speaker
of English. But write up your discussion notes and answers independently.
Double-space all work and use a font size no smaller than 12. Your entire
homework should not be longer than four pages.
Your task
is to find a systematic linguistic difference between any two languages, and to
come up with a way to study non-linguistic cognitive differences that could
result from this difference. This will give you practice designing research, in
particular in the area of linguistic relativism. It will also ensure that
you've understood the methods used by and issues surrounding linguistic
relativism.
The task. Propose a
research project [that you might never actually do] that identifies an
interesting and systematic difference between two languages, and tests an
interesting aspect of linguistic relativism. You should think about what
aspects of relativism can be addressed using the difference you decide on -
some we have talked about are perception, categorization, memory, and
attention. You should also think about exactly what method would answer the
question that you're interested in. The method can be adapted from work we've
read or talked about in class, or can be your own creation (although adapting
an existing method is usually easier).
The
phenomenon. You can work on any systematic linguistic difference
between languages, so long as there's some way it can be translated into a
clear predicted difference in non-linguistic cognition for speakers of the two
languages. All the readings in this section of the course are useful examples.
The
proposal
should be no more than four pages long, and should include:
á
statement
of and justification for the hypothesis; why is the question broadly interesting?
á
brief
descriptions of related work (for instance, the relativism work we've read in
class)
á
the
procedure to be used in the experiment (e.g. triad task, preferential looking,
etc.)
á
what
you will be measuring (e.g. reaction time, percentage selecting an answer,
etc.)
á
the
conditions (e.g. native language)
á
the
control conditions you will include, if any
á
the
materials to be used (e.g. the sentence, pictures, words, etc.): how many will
there be of each kind; include examples!
á
description
and number of subjects to be included
á
what
statistical test you would use
á
the
expected results, and what they would tell you about the experimental
hypothesis