THOUGHTAND LANGUAGE

A classical view (dating back to Aristotle) holds that thought is prior to language and that languages have developed the properties they have in order to express ideas. A contrasting view holds that we can only think logically and coherently because language assists us in doing so.

Both raise the question of the precise relationship between the linguistic form in which we express our ideas and the form in which they are stored in our minds. To what extent is language an external representation of thought and to what extent is it an entirely different code?

Behavourist theory treated the mind as unknowable, and some of its exponents suggested that thought was nothing more than internalised speech. They cited evidence of electrical activity in the throat muscles when thinking was in progress, which they claimed was some kind of subvocalisation. This view was put to the test in a famous experiment in which curare was used to temporarily paralyse the muscular system of a volunteer; the volunteer nevertheless reported later that he was able to think and solve problems.

The relationship between thought and language has implications for theories of how the cognitive development of a young child affects the course of language acquisition. Here, several positions have emerged:

Cognition drives language. Piaget saw the development of language as determined by the stages at which cognitive concepts are acquired. For example, the child could not refer to the absence of objects (CUP GONE) without having achieved the concept of object permanence.

Language and cognition are mutually supportive. Vygotsky believed that in the early years of life speech and thought are independent. However, from the age of two onwards, pre-linguistic thought (= action schemas, images) begins to interact with pre-intellectual language (words treated simply as properties of the objects they denote). Gradually, ‘thought becomes verbal and speech rational’. An important part is played by egocentric speech, which serves two functions: an internal one, where the child monitors and organises its thoughts and an external one, where it communicates those thoughts to others. The two are not fully differentiated until the child is about seven, when a distinction is made between public conversation and private thought.

Language is independent of general cognition, though the two are closely linked. This view is critical to the thinking of Chomsky and others, whoargue that language is a separate faculty which is innately acquired and which develops independently of the intellectual capacities of the individual.

The way thought is structured helps to shape language. Like Chomsky, Pinker regards linguistic and cognitive development as distinct. But he represents language as mapping on to an abstract code specific to thought which he terms mentalese.

The thought vs language issue also embraces a long-standing discussion about how we perceive reality. Does the physical world fall into natural categories which all human beings readily recognise (a realist view)? Or do we see the world in terms of the categories that our language has taught us (a constructivist view)? The anthropologists Sapir and Whorf made strong claims for the latter position. Linguistic determinism holds that the characteristics of the language we speak determine the way in which we think and view the world. The theory was called into question by studies of colour systems across languages. Although languages divide up the colour spectrum in different ways, it was found that focal points (prototypical examples) for particular colours are not only shared by speakers of the same language, but are also shared across languages.

Other studies have tried to establish whether the ability to form particular concepts is influenced by the nature of a language’s grammar. There is some evidence that Chinese speakers find counter-factual reasoning (If I were rich, I’d buy a plane) more difficult than speakers of some other languages; but it is difficult to be sure that this is specifically the result of linguistic rather than cultural or educational differences.

Currently, some credence is given to a weaker form of the Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis– namely that language can support or hinder performance on certain cognitive tasks. In an early experiment, subjects were shown visual symbols accompanied by two different descriptions (the same symbol might be described as a broom with one group and a gun with another). When subjects were later asked to draw the symbols, their versions matched the descriptions rather than the original drawings.

See also: Colour systems, Linguistic relativity, Modularity1, Piagetian stages of development, Vygotskyan

Further reading: Garnham and Oakhill (1994: Chap. 3); Greene (1975)

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مواضيع ذات صلة

TOP-DOWN PROCESSING

TONE LANGUAGES

TIP OF THE TONGUE (TOT)

THEORYOF MIND

THEMATIC (THETA) ROLE

TASK DEMANDS

TACHISTOSCOPE

T-UNIT (also MINIMALTERMINAL UNIT)

SYNTHESISED SPEECH

SYNTACTIC PARSING

SYNTACTIC DEVELOPMENT

SYNAESTHESIA