Language and Thought
by Sheila Wyatt, May 2003
Does language shape thought?
Does the language you speak affect how you think about the world?
Do people think in language?
What is language?
There is no fully accepted definition of language. Language is an expressive representation system
that allows the speaker to communicate ideas, concepts, beliefs, and thoughts. It communicates the
speaker’s intentions. It is also a tool for behavior control and social coordination. Reading, writing,
speaking, and some gesture systems are all forms of language. Most linguists agree that there are some
6000 languages that are actually used by people in communication.
A definition of
language is always, implicitly or
explicitly, a definition of human beings in the world.
Raymond Williams
Language is a purely human and non-
instinctive method of communicating ideas,
emotion and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.
Edward Sapir
A set (finite or infinite) of
sentences,
each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements.
Noam Chomsky
The institution whereby humans
communicate and interact with each other
by means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols.
R.A. Hall
Issues
Language of thought theories generally fall into two categories. The first viewpoint is that the language of thought is innate, known as mentalese. The second view supposes that the language of thought is not innate, but is natural “learned” languages. Noam Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar falls into the mentalese realm. Jerry Fodor and Steven Pinker also support the theory of mentalese. Lev Vygotsky, a pioneer in the study of thought and language, believed that culture plays an important role in determining thought. The work of Sapir, Whorf and Carruthers also represent the alternative view, that our thoughts are constructed from the words and sentences of natural language.
Vygotsky studied language and thought as a connected phenomenon and discovered how words and thought are interrelated and both lead to ever expanding knowledge. His work was unknown in the United States for many years. Vygotsky was of the school that thought is determined by language, by the linguistic tools of thought and by the socio-cultural experiences of the child (Vygotsky, 1934). Cognitive skills and patterns of thinking are not primarily determined by innate factors, but are the products of the activities practiced in the social institutions of the culture in which the individual grows up.
Thought and language have independent origins. The two merge around two years of age, producing mental thought. Mental operations are embodied in the structure of language; therefore cognitive development results from the internalization of language. We cannot think without language.
Egocentric, or private, speech is a transitional phase in child development. It is a precursor to verbal thought. Two issues are involved in the merging of thought and language. First, mental functions have social origins and second, children use language for some time before they make the switch from external to internal speech. Egocentric speech occurs when a child uses language that she/he has acquired to organize and plan her/his own activities. Eventually it goes beneath the surface to become inner speech, or pure thought.
Whorf believed that the structure of language plays a role in determining worldview. He based his hypothesis on the study of the treatment of time and space in Hopi. Whorf claimed that speakers of Hopi and speakers of English see the world differently because of differences in their languages. The Whorfian hypothesis is regarded as a psychological hypothesis about language performance and not as a linguistic hypothesis about language competence. (Hunt and Agnoli, 1991.) Grammatical preferences in a language have a direct relationship to preferences in logic and thinking within a culture.
Distinctions of each language represent a way of perceiving, analyzing, and acting in the world. (Whorf, 1956). Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf studied the relationship between language, thought, and culture. Both Sapir and Whorf agreed that it is our culture that determines our language, which in turn determines the way that we categorize our thoughts about the world and our experiences in it. Neither of them officially wrote the hypothesis nor supported it with empirical evidence, but through a thorough study of their writings linguists have found two main ideas.
First, linguistic determinism states that the language you speak determines the way that you will interpret the world around you. Thought is determined by language. A weaker view of determinism holds that thought is merely affected by or influenced by our language, whatever that language may be. Differences in language reflect the different views of different people. This version of determinism is widely accepted today.
Second, linguistic relativism states that language merely influences your thoughts about the real world. The language we use, whichever it happens to be, divides our whole reality into completely arbitrary compartments. For Whorf, our understanding of the world is one that has been structured by the linguistic systems at work in our minds.
Two sources of information are important for language. First, lexically identified concepts that serve as the primitive elements of structure, and secondly, the culturally developed schema that guide in building the structure. Structural meaning comes from the order, or pattern, in which the lexicons are placed.
Chomsky’s 1957 book, Syntactic Structures, set the stage for shifting the study of linguistics away from ideas of relativity toward a fundamentalist view of universals. Chomsky theorized that children are born with some form of a language-acquisition device that enables them to analyze the speech they hear and derive the rules of that language. Chomsky’s concept of Universal Grammar is well known. Anthropological studies of language propose that there is considerable diversity in world languages and therefore no underlying universal grammar structure. Chomsky believes that when we study the deep structures of the languages we see that there is very little differentiation in their fundamental mechanisms and principles. This difference between anthropology and linguistics was not as sharply defined in America prior to Chomsky.
Chomsky approaches the issues of linguistic structure as a part of human psychology. Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, unlike any communication systems in other animals. He disagrees with the argument that human language is simply a more complex form of communication found in the animal world.
The possession of
human language is connected with a specific type of mental organization, not
merely an advanced level of intelligence.
Chomsky argues that there is no established relationships in Karl Popper’s theory that human language passed through stages, a “lower stage” of vocal gestures used for expression of emotion and a “higher stage” of articulated sounds used for expression of thought, (Chomsky, 1968) This gap is comparable to the “missing link” in the evolution of humans.
Chomsky argues that the theory of learning needs to expand from the concept that what is learned is a stimulus-response behavior to include the notion of competence.
Fodor proposes the theory of Mentalese or Language of Thought (LOT). (Language of thought as opposed to thinking in language.) Mentalese is innate and universal. Mentalese is for thinking. Natural languages such as English, Spanish and French, exist solely for the purpose of interpersonal communication. Jerry Fodor's view encompasses the "communicative" conception of spoken language, that is that languages such as English merely serve to communicate meanings that are primarily expressed and contained in thoughts of a different medium. Natural language is merely a tool for use in interpersonal communication. Natural languages cannot enhance the cognitive capacity of their users.
Pinker approaches the subject from the Chomskyan framework. Language is not a cultural manifestation, but a distinct piece of the biological makeup of the brain. Language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution like web spinning in spiders or sonar in bats. (Pinker, 1994) The Language Instinct supports the theory that language is innate and that humans have a common “universal grammar”. Pinker concludes that the first anatomically modern humans already spoke the equivalent of modern human language. Since language is intrinsic to the brain structures that produce and interpret it, language must have co-evolved with those structures. (Pinker, 1994) Examples that Pinker gives in support of mentalese are that 1) we often remember the “gist” of a sentence rather than the actual sentence, and 2) new words are coined to express new thoughts. (Silby, 2000).
Peter Carruthers-The Thinking in Natural Language theory
Carruthers’ central thesis about linguistic thought is that human thought occurs in natural, spoken languages. Carruthers "cognitive" conception of language is the view that spoken languages not only serve to communicate the contents of thoughts, but that they also typically express thoughts -- that thoughts as well as utterances occur in these languages. (Kaye, 1998) Natural language is not solely for communication, but enhances cognition as well.
The implications of the testimony of Helen Keller are insightful and point to the important role that natural language plays in thinking. Helen Keller communicated tactilely, and claimed to think in terms of touch. She remembers life before she learned how to sign and states that she was a non-thinking entity during that time. (Silby, 2000).
A recent study by Vanderbilt University involving Braille readers sheds new light on the relationship between language and thought. Individuals who have been blind from birth use different parts of their brain when reading Braille than those who lost their sight at an early age.
Subjects were asked to read a single word in Braille. The researchers used fMRI imaging to detect areas of brain activity during this test to display activity in different parts of the visual cortex. They did not find major differences in magnitude and expanse of activation in the visual cortex between the two groups. They did, however, find striking differences in the activation behavior, the relationship between the timing of the activation of specific visual areas and the task.
They hypothesize that even a short period of early visual experience makes it harder to recruit certain areas in the visual cortex. They propose that this may be one reason why those that are blind from birth tend to be much better Braille readers than those who lose their sight later in life. This supports the proposition that a kind of mental imagery exists which is independent of the five senses, and that this non-visual imagery is closely related to language. (Salisbury, 2001.)
Boroditsky’s study of Mandarin and English speakers make a strong case for language shaping habitual thought. She purports that (1) language is a powerful tool in shaping thought about abstract domains and (2) one’s native language plays an important role in shaping habitual thought. (Boroditsky, 2001). Her study attempts to show an effect of first-language thinking on second-language understanding using the implicit measure of reaction time.
The study examined whether different ways of talking about time lead to different ways of thinking about it. Both Mandarin and English speakers use horizontal terms to talk about time. In addition, Mandarin speakers generally use the vertical terms. Do the differences between the English and Mandarin ways of talking about time lead to differences in how their speakers think about time? Both use their spatial knowledge to think about time. If Mandarin speakers do show a vertical bias in thinking about time even when they are ‘‘thinking for English,’’ then language must play an important role in shaping speakers’ thinking habits. (Boroditsky, 2001).
Language-encouraged habits in thought can operate regardless of the language that one is currently thinking for. The outcome of Boroditsky’s study suggests that experience with a language can shape the way one thinks. Learning a new way to talk about a familiar subject can change the way one thinks about that subject.
Psychologists began studying the use of private speech by children in the 1920’s. John Watson viewed it as inappropriate behavior that gradually goes away as parents and teachers pressure children to stop talking out loud. Jean Piaget saw private speech as “egocentric” and that it serves no purpose and is therefore replaced as the child matures. Lev Vygotsky believed that private speech is a personal social communication with ones’ self that assists in helping children to integrate language with thought. Kohlberg’s observations of children support the theory of Vygotsky that private speech is used to facilitate children’s thinking and guide their behavior.
Laura Berk and Ruth Garvin did several studies to compare Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories. They found that children who talk to themselves the most also talk to others the most. This supported Vygotsky’s notion that private speech is encouraged and stimulated by social experience. (Berk, 1986.) In another study they found that how well children did on their math assignments had a direct correlation with private speech and their intellectual maturity. Children who performed poorly on tests used less mature forms of private speech.
Berk concludes that private speech is an important means through which children organize, understand and gain control over their behavior. Observations of private speech provide a rich source of information about how children’s thinking develops.
Learning is an essential part of language, because by its very nature language has to be shared. The learning period synchronizes the language ability of each child to that of everyone else around him. (Pinker, 1994)
Whorf’s reference to multilingual awareness in bilingual people includes different languages, cognitive systems, and cultures that they go between on a daily basis. Whorf sheds light on Western arrogance that may help as English goes global, engulfing other worldviews with its own, with its emphasis on static nouns in an inanimate universe. We owe a debt of gratitude to Whorf for explicating what different forms of thinking are like, and for so expertly showing us a somewhat foreign way of thinking and holding it up as a mirror to our own. (Alford, 2002.)
The debate between these theories of thought and language is almost like the chicken and egg question. Which came first? There is more involved than just language and thought, there is culture. Comparisons of different languages can lead one to pay attention to ‘universals’ – the way languages are similar, and to ‘particulars’ – the ways in which individual languages are unique. (Slobin, 2001.) As a teacher it is important to pay attention to both.
Teachers need to have sophisticated language skills. Language is used socially and it is also internalized. Since children generally exhibit more audible private speech when tasks are harder teachers might use this as a sign of trouble. When children who normally internalize their private speech, thinking, start speaking out loud they may need additional help with a specific task.
Children need learning environments that permit them to be verbally active while solving problems. Talking out loud or muttering should not be interpreted as evidence of lack of self-control or misbehavior. Requiring children to be quiet can be counterproductive because it suppresses private speech that can be crucial to learning.
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