2020/1 PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

The relationship of language, thought, and culture is a topic that is central to psycholinguistics. People throughout the ages have wondered whether speech or language is necessary for thought. Can we think without lan- guage? Does language influence culture? Does language affect our perception of nature? Does language affect our view of society and the world?

We shall deal directly with these questions. However, before doing so, we would like to begin in an indirect way – by recounting a court case, one that exemplifies the issues that we will consider. The case and the fate of Robert Meyer is true and it happened in the United States about 85 years ago.

15.1.1 The arrest of the Sunday School teacher

In May of 1920, in Hamilton County, which is a rural area in the state of Nebraska, Robert Meyer was arrested for violating a certain state law. This Nebraska law forbade the teaching of a foreign language, that is, a language other than English, to children under the age of 13 years. Meyer had been teaching Bible stories in German at Zion Parochial school to a 10-year-old boy. Since German was a foreign language for the boy, Meyer was in viola- tion of the law. According to Nebraska’s 1919 Siman Act,

No person shall teach any subject to any person in any language other than the English language. Languages other than English may be taught only after a pupil shall have . . . passed the eighth grade.  Any person who violates any

of the provisions of this act shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, shall be subject to a fine of not less than twenty-five dollars ($25), nor more than one hundred dollars ($100) or be confined in the county jail for any period not exceeding thirty days for each offense.

(US Supreme Court Reports, 1922, pp. 392–403)

Actually not only Nebraska but 21 other states prohibited the teaching   of foreign languages. Only so-called ‘dead’ languages such as Latin and

Greek could be taught. The states had passed these laws essentially with the German language as the target. America had just finished a war with  Germany and generally there was a hatred of Germany and things German, particularly its military and authoritarian values, ideals, and political insti- tutions. The language law reflected the widespread American belief that the German language itself embodied all that was wrong in German culture and so to teach such a language to young Americans would be immoral  and corrupting.

It is here that the psycholinguistic question arises. Is it the case that a particular language such as German embodies the culture, values, and ideals of a particular people such as the German people? Let us put aside this question for the moment and return to the fate of Robert Meyer.

Meyer appeals to the Nebraska Supreme Court

Meyer was in fact found guilty. However, he decided to appeal his lower- court case to the Supreme Court of the state of Nebraska. (Each state in    the United States has its own Supreme Court.) Ironically, lawyers for the state of Nebraska made essentially the same claim that the famous German philosopher, Wilhelm von Humboldt, made for the German language in 1836 (von Humboldt, 1971). That is, a language by its very nature represents the spirit and national character of a people. Never could von Humboldt have dreamed that the German national character and spirit (of which he was so proud), along with the German language, would be held in such disrepute by other countries as to result in their demanding the banning of anything German! The state of Nebraska argued that by teaching children the grammar, structure, and vocabulary of the German language, Meyer could harm American children by instilling in them the wicked German values that were embedded in the German language.

The US Supreme Court takes a position on language, thought, and culture

The Nebraska Supreme Court denied Meyer’s appeal, but Meyer was not content with that ruling. He took his case to the highest court in the country, the United States Supreme Court. There he won his case, with the court overturning his Nebraska convictions. The court declared as unconstitutional all laws in the United States that forbade the teaching of a foreign language. In its 1922 ruling, the court stated as one basis (there were others on con- stitutional grounds) for its decision that ‘Mere knowledge of the German  language cannot reasonably be regarded as harmful’ (p. 400). It maintained that knowing a foreign language would not in itself provide the values and culture of the country from which that language is derived. Was the court correct? It is up to us, in effect, to assess the validity of the court’s psy- cholinguistic conclusion.