Humans have many unique characteristics and attributes that make us very different from the animals around us. With these attributes, we are also able to dominate and manipulate our environment around us to our personal benefit. Some of these attributes that humans possess are self-awareness, higher emotion, and personal memory. Humans are able to use these tools to make our world better because of the phenomenon of language. According to a Columbia paper, “Language is implicated in most of the phenomena that lie at the core of a social psychology: attitude change, social perception, personal identity, social interaction, intergroup bias and stereotyping, attribution, and so on…” Self-awareness is the ability of being aware of being aware …show more content…
We are able to feel emotions like greed and anger, but also feel generosity and happiness. Most languages have a copious amount of words that describe emotions. According to Michael Bamberg, author of “The Role of Language in the Construction of Emotions,” “Language is a mean of making sense of emotions.” The most obvious way that language helped with the development of emotions is that language is used to describe emotional experiences with different words and phrases. When describing an emotion to someone, a person may have a “temporary reduction in the accessibility” of the word used to describe it. This shows a bridge between language and emotion because if a person can’t think of the word they want to use to describe the emotion, this could lead to a less intense feeling of the emotion. The development of language led to a higher perception of more complex emotions. Language is seen to influence the greater development of higher emotion with reading as well. According to an experiment conducted by the journal, Psychological Science, reading the words “to laugh”, led to the activation of the smiling muscle. Reading those words didn’t activate the frowning muscle though. This means that the language has not only influenced the development of higher emotions, but also how we convey these emotions to the world. The study also said that muscle activity is “induced in the reader when reading verbs representing facial …show more content…
Language has helped this simple ability of remembering go beyond the limits set by nature. These memories that we are able to relive in our minds over and over again are either shaped by imagery or by language. Language is considered a “simple memory tool.” Humans have the ability to use writing and language to help remember certain things. Like the two other abilities I researched, strong personal memory develops in a child during the first 2-3 years of life, coinciding with language. Infants can remember and become attached to their mother’s voice in the first three days of life, but remembering more complex memories doesn’t happen until later in development. In children, a difficulty in recalling certain things is directly connected to their language skills. Language is so integrated into the development of personal memory that it could also hinder its effects. Language can change the way you remember something. If a mother describes to her child the first time he or she fell off a bike as non-threatening and non-intense, the memory that is developed will reflect the mother’s seemingly nonchalant interpretation of the accident. On the other hand, if the memory is intense and over exaggerated, the child will
Language is our power and expression is our freedom. Through a puff of air, we are able to communicate and influence the environments that surround us. Over the course of time humans have evolved, but by the means of language, humans have matured into humanity. The possibility of thought and emotions such as empathy show the ability to think with complexity. A crucial element that helps Suzanne K. Langer’s illustrate the essence of humanity throughout her essay “Language and Thought.” Langer thoroughly depicts what sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom by explicitly stating “The line between man and beast […] is the language line” (120). Consequently, this implies that if a person is declined the freedom of language they are hardly considered human. Many people around the globe have had their voices silenced due to corrupt governments and the oppression of their culture. These individuals are subjected to the devastating effects of the loss of language, which in turn, translates to the loss of power. Language is our foundation for hopes and opportunity, for with out it a person is shell of possibility that is subjected to a passive existence.
Sometimes we think that words are a way to express what we have on our minds. Right? Think again. Guy Deutscher justifies just that. Our mother tongue does train our brains into thinking a certain type of way, also altering our perceptions of reality. In the NY Times article, “Does Your Language Shape How You Think?,” Guy points out that the mother tongue is Hebrew and leaves us with how we perceive the world. Guy’s protestor, Benjamin Lee Whorf, exclaims that language doesn’t have a particular word for a concept and that the concept itself could not be understood by the speaker. Guy argues that he does not have enough evidence that will substantiate the theory. He claims that Whorf is wrong on so many
Charles Darwin put forth a point in the 1870 that emotions came into their form because they have modifying features. For instance, disgust emerged because the individual by responding in different ways to this emotion increased his survival rate. The expressions of individuals face are in born, the individual soon identifies the expressions on one’s face to judge whether other person is happy to meet him or not. The different theo...
According to Sternberg (1999), memory is the extraction of past experiences for information to be used in the present. The retrieval of memory is essential in every aspect of daily life, whether it is for academics, work or social purposes. However, many often take memory for granted and assume that it can be relied on because of how realistic it appears in the mind. This form of memory is also known as flashbulb memory. (Brown and Kulik, 1977). The question of whether our memory is reliably accurate has been shown to have implications in providing precise details of past events. (The British Psychological Association, 2011). In this essay, I would put forth arguments that human memory, in fact, is not completely reliable in providing accurate depictions of our past experiences. Evidence can be seen in the following two studies that support these arguments by examining episodic memory in humans. The first study is by Loftus and Pickrell (1995) who found that memory can be modified by suggestions. The second study is by Naveh-Benjamin and Craik (1995) who found that there is a predisposition for memory to decline with increasing age.
Memory is the tool we use to learn and think. We all use memory in our everyday lives. Memory is the mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experiences. We all reassure ourselves that our memories are accurate and precise. Many people believe that they would be able to remember anything from the event and the different features of the situation. Yet, people don’t realize the fact that the more you think about a situation the more likely the story will change. Our memories are not a camcorder or a camera. Our memory tends to be very selective and reconstructive.
The use of language can be seen to correlate with the views of society. The words used to describe groups and the tone associated is a hindrance to the acceptance of all the ways people are grouped. Prejudice can be stereotypes or terms used that society did not first recognize as discrimination or hate. The words spoken can have a greater impact than once believed. The ability to vocalize these words can be permanent through social media and has a negative impact on society. Social media shows that women are grouped with unwanted characteristics. The message that language can have towards the ability of women is taught in schools. The discrimination learned through schools can affect women in their area of employment and society. The inability
...tumps them and studies and research is still being conducted in order to gain more insight into this quizzical case. But in order to understand the correlation between age and eidetic memory, one can look at the causes as three different theories. The first theory is the Linguistic theory, the idea that as children mature, their language skills help them perceive information. The second theory is one dealing with functionalism. The idea is that over time, the child’s brain learns to retain only significant bits of information and discard unnecessary ones. And the last theory deals with association. As one matures, one learns to associate their different senses in order to process information. In all, each theory takes credence, because one provides a thoughtful and logical explanation as to why children rely less and less on visual imagery to build their memory.
In her article, How Does Our Language Shape the Way We Think, Lera Boroditsky (2009) explains how the results of her experiments support the idea that the structure of language shapes the way we think. In one of her experiments, she found that English speakers would place cards showing temporal progression in temporal order from left to right, Hebrew speakers would place them right to left, and that the Kuuk Thaayorre would place them from east to west. This shows that the written language affects how time is represented to them. In another one of her experiments, she asked German and Spanish speakers to describe some items and found that the masculinity or femininity of the noun in their respective languages affects how it is ultimately described. This can also be seen in how artists represent the human form of abstract entities like death. Boroditsky concludes that “Language is central to our experience of being human, and the languages we speak profoundly shape the way we think, the way we see the world, the way we live our lives.” (Core reader p. 49) I would like to add that language is also the foundation of a person’s culture, pride, and self by exploring articles written by Eric Liu, Amy Tan, and Gloria Anzaldua.
One famous pioneer in this area is Ekman (1973 in Shiraev & Levy, 2007, 2004) who classified six basic facial expressions as being universal and reflecting most emotional states. They are happy, sad, anger, disgust, surprised and fearful. Ekman (1973) proposed that the universality of emotions allows individuals to empathise with others and enables us to read other’s feelings therefore emotions must serve an adaptive purpose hence supporting the claim that they are universal (Darwin, 1972 in John, Ype, Poortinga, Marshall & Pierre 2002). Moreover, emotions are widely accepted to accompany...
Language has a significant impact on cognitive development as according to Vygotsky language precedes thinking. (Powell, Katherine C, Kalina, Cody J p241) A common language is necessary for people to interact socially. Language is...
language can allow us to communicate an exact idea or to persuade others to one
...oes for most of the emotions that people feel. I never really noticed any of this before I started writing this paper. I shared this information with my best friend and she was amazed that the way people interact is generally the same within groups in society. She now has a better understanding of the communication patterns and behaviors of people and she is not even in the class.
Words can be beautiful, destructive, and manipulative. Language is central to all our lives, and arguably the cultural tool that sets humans apart from any other species. Language enables us to express our wishes, feelings, likes, dislikes, and ideas; it can be a symbolic function. Language also plays a role in how we affect other people, and how we make others feel, achieved just by our choice of words. By observing the language and the behavior of other people, one is provided with valuable information about personality type. If one listens closely they can better understand a friend’s temperament. By paying close attention to others, how they speak, how they dress, and facial expressions, we can better understand the wants of those around as and how they function as a person. The play Othello is full of rich dialogue with characters speaking eloquently and exquisitely to one another, “Yet I 'll not shed her blood, Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow, And smooth as monumental
Language is an essential thing needed to communicate and to develop the skills one needs to be a complete, whole, intelligent individual. Language is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. Here we shall define language and lexicon, evaluate the key features of language, describe the four levels of language structure and processing, and analyze the role of language processing in cognitive psychology.
Expressive language can reveal a person's happiness, sadness, anger, or other state of emotion. Language expresses and evokes ideas, thoughts and feelings. Expressive language may or may not include any real information because the purpose of expressive use of language is to convey emotion. Swearing, cheering, and sounds that represent emotions are examples of expressive language.