It’s Not What You Say, It’s the Order in Which You Say It


	It’s Not What You Say, It’s the Order in Which You Say It

Silkweaver

7-2-2008 8:10 PM

1183 views

tags:

brain, communication, language

Silkweaver says:

This research may hint that concepts exist an are being processed in the human brain, prior to and independent of language.

1 Comment |

Add a Comment

7-3-2008 6:01 AM

mona

very interesting article.
thank you silkweaver.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://www.clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/6df9ee16-f905-49dc-912c-35e7ffc41691/2BE77681-5621-49B1-B601-17689119A1E7/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/07/02/it%e2%80%99s-not-what-you-say-it%e2%80%99s-the-order-in-which-you-say-it/" href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/07/02/it%e2%80%99s-not-what-you-say-it%e2%80%99s-the-order-in-which-you-say-it/" style="font-size: 11px;">blogs.discovermagazine.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/07/02/it%e2%80%99s-not-what-you-say-it%e2%80%99s-the-order-in-which-you-say-it/"><div align="center"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/blogs.discovermagazine.com/img/49181DDB-F899-4A23-A677-C60B7CD334B1" alt="sign language" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/07/02/it%e2%80%99s-not-what-you-say-it%e2%80%99s-the-order-in-which-you-say-it/">We don’t always say exactly what we mean, and it has nothing to do with being polite. </blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/07/02/it%e2%80%99s-not-what-you-say-it%e2%80%99s-the-order-in-which-you-say-it/">A new study suggests that the <A href="http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/dn14228-charades-reveals-a-universal-sentence-structure.html" linkindex="22" set="yes">order</A> in which we construct our thoughts is consistent, regardless of the language we speak.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/07/02/it%e2%80%99s-not-what-you-say-it%e2%80%99s-the-order-in-which-you-say-it/">researchers recruited speakers of English, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish, all of which use the subject-verb-object construction.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/07/02/it%e2%80%99s-not-what-you-say-it%e2%80%99s-the-order-in-which-you-say-it/">They also gathered participants who spoke Turkish, which orders sentences as subject-object-verb.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/07/02/it%e2%80%99s-not-what-you-say-it%e2%80%99s-the-order-in-which-you-say-it/">The participants were shown a series of illustrations and asked to communicate the scenes depicted using only gestures.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/07/02/it%e2%80%99s-not-what-you-say-it%e2%80%99s-the-order-in-which-you-say-it/">The resulting nonverbal communication was predominantly comprised of subject-object-verb order, regardless of the speaker’s language.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/07/02/it%e2%80%99s-not-what-you-say-it%e2%80%99s-the-order-in-which-you-say-it/">These findings suggest that natural order may be <A href="http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0710060105v1" linkindex="25" set="yes">rooted in our brains</A>, and could also help explain why newly developing sign languages use a consistent word order.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/07/02/it%e2%80%99s-not-what-you-say-it%e2%80%99s-the-order-in-which-you-say-it/">Why then do some languages defy our natural ordering impulse? Although this is still unclear, cultural forces may play a role.</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/2BE77681-5621-49B1-B601-17689119A1E7/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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