[lingtalks] Linguistics Colloquium on Jan 23

[Katie McGee]

Our first colloquium of the Winter quarter will be held on Monday, January 
23rd, from 2-3:30 in the TV Studio in McGill Hall.
Soonja Choi from SDSU will be presenting a talk on "Language Specific Input 
on Spatial Cognition"
Abstract below.

Day: Monday
Date:  January 23rd
Time: 2-3:30
Place: TV Studio (McGill)

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> Language-Specific Input on Spatial Cognition
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> San Diego State University
> Soonja Choi
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> Languages differ significantly in the way they categorize spatial 
> relations.  For example, English makes a distinction between containment 
> (e.g. putting an apple IN a bowl) and support (e.g. putting a cup ON a 
> table), whereas Korean makes a distinction between loose fit and tight fit 
> regardless of containment and support.  In Korean, the verb KKITA 'tight 
> fit or interlock' is used for both a tight-fit containment relation such 
> as 'putting a book tightly in its box-shaped cover' and a tight-fit 
> support relation such as 'putting a Lego piece tightly onto another'.
>
> The extensiveness of cross-linguistic differences in spatial semantic 
> categorization found in recent studies on adult grammars raises questions 
> about when and how children acquire the spatial semantic system of their 
> native language, and more generally, about the relationship between 
> language and cognition in children and adults.  In this talk, I present 
> studies that examine language-specific input and spatial cognition in 
> learners (and adult speakers) of English and Korean.  In particular, I 
> examine whether and to what extent language-specific semantics can 
> influence nonlinguistic spatial cognition.  Overall, my studies show that 
> there is a dynamic interaction between language and cognition from a very 
> early age and that language starts to influence spatial cognition as 
> children use spatial words productively.  However, some aspects of spatial 
> cognition persist regardless of language-specific input.