Psychology 349LT - Sem: Language and Thought

Languages differ in the way they describe the world. For example, the noun for bridge is feminine in German, but masculine in French. Russian has two words for blue, while English has only one. The Piraha (an Amazonian hunter-gatherer tribe) arguably have no number words. In this course, we will be asking to what extent these cross-linguistic differences are reflected in thought. That is, do German speakers think bridges are more feminine than French speakers do? Can Russian speakers discriminate different shades of blue better than English speakers? Can the Piraha count? In exploring these questions, we hope to discover how tightly linked language and thought are.

Prereq: PSYCH-200 or PSYCH-204.