Academic Chapter on Language Influence Lacks Concrete Investigative Leads

symbolic connection «- _ understandir = Sentences content movements using $ information “fy linguistic = mined Omessage Oa oni OS However Chapter 7’ Action at a Distance: The Invisible Force of Language 7 The lead author is Howard Nusbaum, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Computational Neuroscience, and co-director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago. He has served as the Chair of the Psychology Department since 1997. He has served as the editor for the International Journal of Speech Technology and 1s on the editorial board of Brain & Language, and has edited several books on spoken language processing. His research interests include spoken language use, mechanisms of learning and attention, and the role of sleep in learning. His recent research has investigated the social use of language and the evolution of language. In addition, he has been working on neural mechanisms of reward and economic decisions. We often think about language in terms of the information in newspapers or speeches or reports. However, language 1s basis of all our social relationships and institutions. We reward and praise with language and we shun and punish with language, perhaps more often than with any other medium. In the recent election, Democratic candidates actually gave speeches outlining different views of the importance of language in our society. One candidate held that words are simply words and only have the force that we give to them by reasoning about them. The other candidate argued that speech has the power to move people to connect and act. Nusbaum was struck by this debate because it seems to him that the power of language goes well beyond what linguists and psychologists talk about as “meaning” and that understanding the meaning of language may depend on understanding the social and emotional impact of language. In this chapter, the idea of the impact of language at a distance is explored. Page | 66 Language is one of the most important ways in which the social brain makes connections, enhances connections, and severs connections among people. Language is our primary medium of social exchange, grounding and elaborating our selves and our relationships in every conversation. However, language goes well beyond personal connections to connect us culturally through stories, songs, and shared manners of speech. Language also provides the formal framework that defines many of our social institutions. Language gives form and substance to the governance and behavior of every social institution from education to law to religion. Clearly there are many ways in which language serves to knit us together both formally and informally. For a linguist, all of these uses can be analyzed in terms of the structure of sentences and their content. However, structure and content do not, on their own merits, provide a complete picture of how language can have the impact it does on our sense of social connection. How does language move us to act, change our feelings, and connect us to others? It seems unlikely that the impact of language is simply the result of dispassionate rational inferences and conclusions drawn from a logical analysis of sentences. In 1976, Barbara Jordan, a Congresswoman from Texas, gave the commencement address at Brandeis University. Listening to her speak about the importance of public service and the importance of using talent and ability in service of one’s country was an impressive experience. Her delivery was clear and not particularly dramatic and yet the force of her speech was riveting. It was sufficient to turn a graduating senior’s mind from graduate school in HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_021312