The Illusion of Naturalness: How Categorization and Language Interfere with Normativity and Our Perception of Reality
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/lev112026167528Keywords:
cognitive linguistics, categorization, linguistic relativity, The Objectivist ParadigmAbstract
This article explores to which extent language can influence our cognitive categorization abilities and consequently our perception of reality. Based on a study into the significance of the naming explosion in accordance with categorization ability-acquisition, the article asserts as a baseline that cognitive categorization is independent of language functions but that there is a certain developmental relationship between the two cognitive abilities. By comparing different fMRI studies on category-dimensionality and aphasia patients, it is found that language has a causal relation to category-dimensionality, and that language can steer our way of categorizing in a certain direction. Additional studies on linguistic relativity and the causal-status effect propose that categories and our sense of ‘naturalness’ can be taught by language. Furthermore, the article discusses The Objectivist Paradigm in contemporary society and essentialist thinking, linking it to the ability of language to create categories in our minds.
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