語言相對論

Abstract

語言相對論(language relativity)主張語言會影響使用者之非語言認知結構以及功能。過去對於語言相對論的研究大多集中於色彩詞彙的有無與顏色辨識之相關性（例如所使用的語言裡如具有某些色彩的對應詞彙，語言使用者對於那些顏色辨識會較快、較佳），但即使已累積大量的研究，對於語言相對論的存在與否依舊沒有定論。而在近幾年，心理語言學家嘗試將研究觸角伸展至量詞系統與認知系統的關係，希望能透過行為研究對於語言相對論的存在與否多一分瞭解，但至今仍舊沒有一致的結果。而由於量詞系統對於認知系統方面的影響一直沒有神經語言學方面的研究，本計畫旨在以神經造影的技術，藉由量詞系統與概念系統之間的關係，探討語言相對論是否存在於中文使用者。 本計畫預計兩年完成，共分為三個實驗：實驗一與實驗二為fMRI實驗，分別從「詞彙」以及「句法」的層面，探討量詞系統是否對於概念系統有所影響；實驗三為需要MRI影像輔助之MEG實驗，實驗內容與實驗二類似，也是從句法層面來探討語言相對論，但希望能藉由MEG極佳的時間解析度來補足實驗二fMRI資料的不足。

The principle of language relativity holds that language influences non-linguistic cognitive structure and/or functioning in its speakers. To address this, a large body of literature has explored the correlations between the existence of color terms in language and its users’ color perception (e.g. whether the existence of certain color terms would facilitate the recognition of those colors); nevertheless, the results are inconclusive. Recently, psycholinguists have extended research of language relativity with the exploration of the relationship between the classifier system and the cognitive system. However, so far a consistent view still eludes the researchers. Since there is no neurolinguistic study on such topics, the PI of this project plans to adopt neuroimaging techniques to continue the new research thread of studying language relativity through Chinese classifiers. This 2-year project contains three experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 will use fMRI to explore the influences of Chinese classifiers on the conceptual system of Mandarin speakers at the lexical and syntactic levels, respectively. Experiment 3 is similar to Experiment 2 in terms of its experimental design and procedure, but MEG instead of fMRI will be used as the research tool to achieve better temporal resolution. Also, MRI structural images will be obtained to improve the spatial resolution of MEG. The PI believes that the current project can shed some light on current understanding of language relativity.