Social cognition and

language

Some examples of schemata

• So far we have looked at a macro view of language, with main focus on
linguistic behavior of a group or groups with respect to language.
• Now, let’s move towards social categories and processing of social
information in interaction.
• The starting point for this is the notion of ‘social cognition’.
• This can be called an ‘adaptive process that emerges from the interaction
between the agent and the world’.
• Because ‘cognition is for action’ and that action is ‘between individuals and
individual and the environment.’
• ‘Representation, processing and application of
social knowledge’ is how many scholars define
social cognition.
• Thus, cognizing the world around us happens not
only at the individual level, but also at social level.
• This gives rise to what is known as social
cognition/cultural cognition.
• People use schemata to organize their
understanding and experience of themselves,
other individuals, social roles and types of events
(Fiske & Taylor 1991).
• This notion of social/cultural cognition is
essentially emergent, meaning the property of the
entire system is not the sum total of the
individual’s concept.
• Nor can the individual agents constituting the
system contain the whole.
What is it made of?

• Cultural cognition has two important and intrinsic aspects: cultural

conceptualizations and language
• Cultural conceptualizations refers to the way members of groups construe
aspects of the world (also called world view).
• This construal includes notions about origin of the world, relationship of
humans with Nature and among each other.
• Also included are thinking about ‘thinking’ as well as emotional experiences.
• In this regard, the lexicon of a language holds the key to this
conceptualization process.
• Lexical entries in a language are dependent upon
the cultural conceptualizations and are a sort of
labels of the same.
• Hence lexicon is also called ‘memory banks’ for
concepts that are culturally constructed.
• For example, the Aboriginal English in Australia
embodies the Aboriginal cultural schemas.
• The English word ‘mum’ for them refers to anyone
who is culturally in the same category as the
mother, such as mother’s sister.
• Similarly, ‘home’ refers to wherever their extended
family members live.
 example
• An Australian Aboriginal language, Murrinh-Patha has non-
classes, type of prefixes that are used with nouns in this
language.
• This classificatory system reflects the cultural classification used
in this language/community.
• Kardu: Aboriginal people and human spirits
• Ku: Non-Aboriginal people and all other animates
• Kura: potable fluid (fresh water) and collective terms for fresh water (rain,
river)
• Mi: flowers and fruits of plants and any vegetable food
• Thu: offensive weapons, thunder, lightning, playing cards
• Thamul: spears
• Thunku: fire and things related to fire
• Da: place
• Murrinh: speech and language and associated concepts like song and news
• Nanthi: residual category that includes whatever does nt fit in the above 9
groups (including defensive weapons)
• This system also allows flexibility.
• E.g. the boomerang, when used as a back scratcher, is
categorized a ‘nanthi’, but when used as an offensive weapon, it is
‘thu’.
Use of plural markers to signal honorific

• Similar grammar-cultural conceptualization link is found in many other

language, notably among them Persin.
• The second person plural pronoun ‘shomaa’ is used as second person
singular honorific, third person plural ‘ishaan’ is used as third person
singular honorific.
• Alongside, the verb ending can also optionally mark honorificity.
metaphors

• Another domain where language embodies cultural conceptualizations

is that of body based metaphors.
• In English, ‘you broke my heart’ indicates heart as the seat of emotion.
• Similarly, various other emotions like sadness, anger, prestige are also
known for their body based metaphorical extensions.
• In Chinese the word ‘xin’ refers to faculties covered by both the heart and
mind in English, like emotion and mental processes.
• This is because in Chinese philosophy, heart is the organ for thinking,
feeling, will, reason and intuition (Yu, 2008).
Cultural schema of self

• Shekasteh-nafsi [broken-ego = humble less] reflects an important cultural schema in

Persian.
• This refers to the speaker in a communicative scenario, reflecting his humility. This may
be used verbally to refe to self, or may underlie the behavior.
• Often, when one receives a complement, it is politely refused saying the person does
not deserve it, play it down, return it to the complimenter and so on.
• This is believed to have originated from and is in line with the Sufi concepts of
• nafs amaareh (ego with pride, selfishness, greed)
• Nafs lavaameh (admonishing ego, for evil deeds)
• Nafs motma’eneh (ego free from materialism and earthly problems)
• The ego is always in battle with the lower aspects and trying to achieve the
higher planes of being.
• Though Sufism is not prominent anymore, the ethos lives on in the language.
• Also because many writers and the like use Sufi conceptualizations in their
writing and they are held in high regard by the general public.
• Hence these ideas are entrenched in the cultural ethos.
On the other hand

• The word for ‘self’ is ‘khod’. Many Persian words are created using this morpheme.
Some examples :
• Now consider:
• Khodbeen: khod + see= conceited
• Khodparast: khod + worship= selfish
• Lhodpasand: khod+ choose= self admire
• Khoddaar: khod+ have=reserved
• Khodsaakhteh: khod+built= self made
• Khodmokhraar: khod+ govern= autonomous, self-governed
• Most words using ‘khod’ have negative meaning, except ‘khodsaakteh’.
 Cultural models

• Cultural models of personhood in Chinese and American

• A person: expectations of what a human life would look like, how the individual
relates to family and society
• In a now famous study, (Patent, 2009), UC Berkley students took part in discussion
on a number of topics, like the following:
• “Tom is about to graduate from school. He decides he does not want to go to
college, despite his parents’ wishes. He, instead, wants to join a rock band. What
will the family members all say to one another? What will happen in the end? Who
is right?”
 The US responses: Success Vs follow your dream

• The respondents had more support for ‘follow your dream model, with cautionary note informed by
success’.
• Ex:

A: I guess if he has lot of talent, and he really really wants to do it..

B: I think he should do it
A:I think he should do it. Cause I mean, you’ve only one life, right? Do what you want
B: Let’s see, let’s see, if it was my kid…seeing as how I am at the university working my but off , trying
to get my degree, I ;d probably be kind of upset at him.
A: Probably
B: No, I know I would be very upset with him (laughter) I would want him to go to college. Cause
chances are its not very good. But, I mean…and yet I just said that he should go and pursue his
dreams. I don’t know. I will probably let him do it despite my wishes. I don’t want an unhappy kid. And
I don’t want him to hate me for the rest of my life”.
 Chinese responses

• The emphasis here was more on success, in terms of public perception as well as
economic considerations. Follow your dreams is never explicitly advocated by any of
the respondents, although the model is available.
• Representative example:

• “I think I would support his parents. Because…in fact after he has finished college he can still have all
sorts of interests and hobbies to be developed in all sorts of ways. But I think knowledge level is an
important aspect in determining this person’s quality. So it is no problem for him… for him to start his rock
band after college; after he has the definite ability to analyse problems and solve them”.
• A: “ But if I were Wang’s parent I would be smarter. I would say you need to go to college, but your dream of
starting a rock band need not be shattered. He can do both at eh same time”
• B: then he is finished. His talent will be destroyed”
• A: Many college students in America, they also go to college and at the same time realize …a lot of
dreams. I think these two are not in contradiction.
• B: Yes, okay, I agree.
• Some US students also used the model of ‘live and learn’;
• For example,

• A: you could let him go with his band thing, and ig it takes off grat; and if it does not then he will
realize that he needs to do other things.
• B: the hard way?
• A: th hard way. Yeah.
• B: But at least he will learn. Right?
• A: Yeah
• B: and he will know.

• This model is available to Chinese as well, more readily as an idiom:

• Chi yi qian zhang yi zhi (fall in a pit and your wisdom grows)
• Patent (2009) lists seven cultural models based on his study on American Vs
Chinese students.
• Success
• Follow your dream
• Live and learn
• You can’t change me
• Independence
• Good reason
• Disclosure

• Though all of these are available to both the groups, there is a specific tensency
towards some of them by each of them.
 Foundational schema

• Many models, specific to particular aspects of culture, together create a foundational

schema in a society (Shore, 1996).
• “Not all cultural models have an all encompassing foundational schema. Many cultural
models are special purpose models…on the other hand, there are those models that are
linked through a foundational schema contributing to the sense …of common world view of
the community”.
• An example of a foundational schema could be the American’s fascination with argument as
a means to resolve arguments (Tannen 1998).
• This is exemplified through Shore’s models of lawyer Vs lawyer courtroom battle, CNN’s
Crossfire , presidential debates and so on.
Why are cultural schemas important?

• This is the underlying framework through which we tend to interact with the world
around us.
• Though the communities are not homogenous by any standards, it is common to see
some particular supracultural models take precedence over others in a give society
and they aften add up to the foundational schemas.
• In essence, this domain adds to the debate on universality Vs relativity.
 • Privacy and social cognition: aeroplane
conversation (or lack thereof).
• It is often a difficult task to respect privacy and
personal space.
• We tend to use indirect speech acts, for
example, when you realize someone else is
siting on your seat; “Is this row 8, looks like its
Words related to my seat”. In some places, the target person
may rise, make way for you and let you go
privacy inside.
• Sometime, they may argue (and become viral
on social media immediately), refuse to get up
and signals you to somehow manage to get to
your seat.
• Retrieving your arm rest is another level
altogether.
Let’s see some examples from cross
cultural data: Turkish

• In Turkish, after the language revolution,

older words (borrowings) made way for
Turkish words, with semantic extension.
• Thus, Turkish words ‘ozel’ has taken over
a collection of wordslike, ‘mahram’,
‘hasusi’, ‘mustakil’, ‘has’.
• Ozel had the meaning : personal ,
peculiar, special, private.
• Now it’s meaning also includes: non-
government, public, private,
personalized, privileged, unique and so
on.
• However, ozel does not include ‘private’ in the strict sense.
• For that , mehrem is used.
• Thus, Turkish identifies two levels of privacy, ‘ozel’ and ‘mehrem’
levels.
• In terms of usage, ‘ozel’ allows for more flexibility. On the other
hand, mehrem applies to domains that should not be talked
about. Hence its usage is limited.
• Thus, ozel okul is private school; ozel can also mean ‘personal’
 • Oma rouha: a more general meaning,
including tranquillity, freedom from social
control. Thus close proximity with other
people, social obligations etc are at odds
Finnish with this concept of privacy.
• Yksityisyys: individual thoughts, personal
space, family matters.
• Intimiteettisuoja:, solitude, intimate
privacy of personal kind.
• The changes to the nouns related to privacy in both Turkish and Finnish
are related to social changes
• In Finland, the population engaged in farming went from 42% in 1950s
to 2% in 2006.
• Simultaneously, influx from rural to urban areas increased significantly.
• The houses were smaller in the early days, with mor members sharing
the same space, but the sparce population in rural areas meant, they
lived in relative isolation from others.
• But now, their living conditions are better but there is constant
interaction with strangers.
• The Finnish put emphasis on ‘quietude’ and in the changed living conditions,
we need to understand the emergence to salience of ‘oma rouha’.

• Similar social changes (more in terms of religious fabric after the coup in
1980) are attributed as the reason for expanded use of ‘ozel; in Turkish.
• Thu, both languages, though they lacked a noun to mean ‘privacy’ in the usual
sense of it, the changing social scenarios saw adaptation of old words to new
meanings.
• This is contrary to Sapir Whorf theory. Here language adapts to society and
does not regulate the viewing of it.
 • Spanish language Doctrina classes for Mexican
immigrants in LA.
• through the narrative of the apparition of Nuestra

Casting
Senora de Guadalupe (Our Lady of Guadalupe),
the church constructs a social identity.

social • The story goes back to a time immediately after

Spanish inquisition (1531) of Mexico. After the
Aztec were vanquished, dehumanized and
identities conquered.
• According to the story, the Mother of God herself
through ‘appeared’ in a ‘vision’ to a peasant asking him to
evangelize his people with the help of Spanish

narratives clergy.
• The Virgin Mary appeared as an Aztec, speaking
in Nahuatl, the Aztec language.
• It has been claimed that the narrative has been used to define and redefine the political
identity of the Mexican people from time to time. (Rodriguez 1994; Poole 1995)
• The doctrina classes have been used for reinforcing political and linguistic uniformity among
the newly converted indigenous population since 1600s.
• The classes were used to impose Castilian Spanish, the language of the conqueror.
• By 1770, a royal decree by the Spanish court mandated the use of Castilian in Mexico, with
the aim to completely eradicate the indigenous language. (Suarez 1983).
• Eventually, this ensured the spread of Spanish language in all other aspects of the Aztec life.
• Thus, religious instruction socialized children not just to religious tenets but also to the
dominant language.
• In due course of such a long time, the people in this parish started
to identify the colonizer’s language as their ‘language of heart’.
Illustrating ‘the achieved goal of Spanish friars’.
• In a doctrina class the teacher first starts by situating the narrative
in the capital of Mexico and asking her pupils if and how many are
Mexicans.
• Thus, the class gets divided into Mexicans and people ‘from here’
(US). Remember the setting is modern day US.
• The narrative, thereby, creates an ethnic identity of sorts.
• In the 1970s, a new debate emerged.
• The doctrina classes continued in Spanish whereas there were
parallel church activities in English, within a community that
was largely bilingual (Spanish-English).
• The English classes were called catechism class. The
participants here are now large in number and they feel the
doctrina group to be superstitious.
• English is now the dominant language of the parish and hence
continuing to use Spanish in specific cases fostered an image
of a separate parish within parish.
• In 1996 April the parish council voted to ‘eliminate doctrina’.
 ‘self’ in cultural cognition

• We have seen the concept of ‘self’ through the linguistic structures in Persian.
• The same has also been investigated through behavioural experiments across linguistic
communities
• The idea here is to check if the notion has different repursussions.
• Now, the idea of ‘self’ is different between oriental and occidental cultures.
• Chinese (as well as in Indic philosophy from antiquity) talks of self as a part of all
encompassing consciousness.
• However, often the focus in these traditions is on transcending self .
• The Chinese philosopher Shi-Yin hang puts it thus “a person is knot in the net, with the only
exception being that he is able consciously to think of the self, i.e. has self-consciousness
and is capable of transcending itself”.
• Western philosophy, on the other hand, takes ‘self’ for granted. Aristotle suggested,” the
whole self, soul and body alike, is something given and not questioned”. And, “knowing
yourself is the beginning of wisdom”.
• Studies have looked at this differential attitude towards the cultural conceptualization of
‘self’ in terms of their psychological processing.
• For example, studies have found that adults show advantage in self face identification ( as
opposed to other familiar or unfamiliar faces) , when there was a task requiring them to do
so explicitly or implicitly.
• However, this self face advantage was found to be more salient among Britishers than
Chinese.
• Even more interestingly, self face identification was found to be
susceptible to influence of viewing significant others’ faces. Meaning
self face identification was slowed/faster with respect to faces of others,
more important people.(Keenan et al 1977; MA & Han 2009; Liew, Ma,
Han & Aziz-Zadeh, 2011).
• Like the case of self face Vs advisors (supervisor, in Indian context):
presence of one’s advisor’s face significantly slowed down the Chinese
respondents’ self face recognition time. the same did not elicit the same
reaction from American students.
• This type of findings point to the fact that self identification( also called
self referential processing) is culturally constructed.
Memory tasks

• In a different type of behavioural tasks, memory measures were used ( called self
referential memory tasks).
• Participants were given a list of trait adjectives and asked to determine f they reflect their
own or someone else’s traits (close family members, friends or public figures)
• In the task condition, they had to identify the words from the list (was this word part of the
list?) (Rogers, Kuiper & Kirker 1977)
• The results showed higher performance in traits that were related to self, even when
contrasted with close family members. This was among the Westerner participants.
• Chinese participants remembered equally well the traits that were for self as well as those
of close family/friends.
• This showed different/similar encoding and recall of information about self and others.
• The difference has been attributed to the Westerner’s (especially North
America) concept of self as independent and autonomous entity, inclined to
attend to itself more than others (Kitayama, 2010).
• With findings from behavioural studies in place, neural signatures of self
reflection followed suit.
• fMRI studies found distinct neural signatures for personality trait judgements
as opposed to different tasks (motor/perceptual)
• Some specific areas are ACC(anterior cingulate cortex) and mPFC (medial
prefrontal cortex)
• IN a study contrasting Chinese and Danish participants, differing activation
pattern was observed in the ventral mPFC for tasks of self Vs other
jusgements.
• Similarly self reflection on social roles activated temporoparietal junction among
Chinese but not the Danish. (Kelly et al, 2002)
• PTJ is involved in understanding others’ beliefs (Saxe & Kanwisher 2003) and lesion in
this region results in mentalizing impairments.
• Many other similar findings point to the fact that cultural cognition does have a strong
neural signature.