Language and thought

[GePap]

Now, i beign with the assumption that over half of the posters here are bilingual in some regard, if not fully bilingual, then at least they know something of another language.

Now, obviously we think with words...I can't imagine any other way. This also seems ot rahter obviously imply that our thoughts are limited by the words we use. This brings about the question I have: are there thoughts you can't have in one language but yes in another? If you have ever thought in a language other than your native one, have you ever noticed a difference?

Now, on the issue of words, I would bring up Freedom and Spanish. NOw, freedom seems to be an idea that expresses negatives; it is a concept about the absence of something: limits, costs, rules, so forth. To be free is to lack something, even if what you lack you may never want. Now, in Spanish there is no word that actually means the same as freedom. To say that you are free politically is to say "soy libre", a form of Libertad, or Liberty. To say something is free of cost is to say "es gratis", which is linked ot the notion of gratitude (gratitud). Now, both Liberty and Gratitude seem to me to be positive notions; the denote the existance of something, rather than the absence of it.

Does this difference make a significant ipact in the form of ideas possible (or any you may notice with your native language and another you know), or is it just "cosmetic", like a Rose by any other name?

[Static Universe]

This is called the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.

http://venus.va.com.au/suggestion/sapir.html

[GePap]

Thanks for the link.

[Nubclear]

Re: Language and thought

Now, obviously we think with words...I can't imagine any other way.

I simply......think. I dont think in word at all.

[Solver]

Tassadar, you're monolingual then. I've asked this many people. People who have one native language, and didn't learn another one till they were pretty matured (14 years, at least), they all say they don't think in words.

People that are either fully bilngual with two native languages (like me) or those who learnt a second language relatively early, agree they think in words.

Well, I do think in all the three languages I use the most - Russian and Latvian (both my equally native languages), as well as English, which I use a lot, because of computers and some books. And while I'm pretty often swapping languages I think in, there are people and places of whom I only think in Latvian. When I need to make a tough decision, I think about it in Russian. When thinking of some good stuff that is going to happen soon, English it is, often .

[Static Universe]

Re: Language and thought

Originally posted by GePap

Does this difference make a significant ipact in the form of ideas possible (or any you may notice with your native language and another you know), or is it just "cosmetic", like a Rose by any other name?

Personally, I don't think it's cosmetic at all. IMO, the words that make up our vocabulary, and more importantly the definitions that we attach to them, have a very powerful effect on how we view the world and act within it.

It's an interesting debate that's been going on in the field of linguistics and cognitive theory for the last 75 years or so. Certainly there is agreement that this effect is occuring, but it's importance in thought processes is widely disputed, ranging from very weak to very strong.

Then there's the question of which languages it may be strong in versus which it may be weak in. The difficulty is in studying language using language, or worse, other languages.

George Orwell makes the important point in 1984 that the power to define words is the power to control society. One has to wonder how this relates to the "political correctness" movement, no matter how you define the phrase or which side you think you're on.

A few more links:

http://www.angelfire.com/journal/worldtour99/sapirwhorf.html

http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/introductory/sapirw.html

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis

[Eli]

It depends on what you think.

There are things I always think about. Small real-life stuff like when and what to eat, and other things like school, apolyton, Utopia, Civ3 PBEM games(yeah, I dont have a life ) etc. In these cases, I dont think in words. Only general ideas, desires...

When it comes to new issues, or complicated ones, then I cant avoid the need to formulate my thougths into some sort of logical stream, so words have to be used.

The interesting thing is that when, in the latter case, I think of really complicated things, I do it in English. Because the only place I use to express complicated opinions is various English message boards.

It's really odd. For example, when thinking about whether to go somewhere now or wait couple hours the "logical stream" is in Hebrew. When trying to decide my future, or when thinking about some important world issue, it's English.

[Kropotkin]

While I've spent some time thinking about the Orwellian point of view and agree with it in theory I haven't been in a situation to test it on myself. I know this though, It is at times hard to articulate some things when there's not words for it in the other language.

[Az]

GePap: one should note that this hypothesis, is not the only one made in the last couple of years, in that direction, and they come as a complete opposite to the ideas of the "cognitive revolution".

But I do agree with them.

[Agathon]

Wow - after all the noise on the forum about philosophy being useless, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis rears it's ugly head.

Even if you don't believe in the cognitive revolution you can still dismiss the hypothesis as Donald Davidson did in "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme". I tend to agree with him.

[Az]

[ranskaldan]

I think mostly in English. But sometimes it switches to Chinese. It's kinda random, actually.

There're also times when I think of something that I can only describe in one language. That's when I pause halfway in speech and gropes around for a word (even though I know it in the other language). Sometimes there're even concepts that I feel can't be described in either one.

In general I think that language influences thought, but language doesn't make thought. Our thoughts are carried by the medium called language, but without this medium they still exist - they just can't be expressed.

[Az]

In general I think that language influences thought, but language doesn't make thought. Our thoughts are carried by the medium called language, but without this medium they still exist - they just can't be expressed.

I don't agree. most of our highest functions, abstract concepts cannot exist without language.

Besides, You sort of contradict yourself. either thoughts and language exist independently and the language is just medium of passing them through, or language influences thought. noone claims that language is the thing that createst thoughts, but I don't think we could grasp concepts without words. And words are part of a lanugage. if language influences thought, that means that language and thought are interconnected.

[ranskaldan]

Of course thought influences language; this is because, in the process of expressing thoughts (in language), the thought goes through filters that bends it.

E.g., If A is talking to B, and A wishes to express the thought to B, A must then bend the thought to fit the language, changing it into a stream of code. B takes the code and interprets it, trying to reconstruct the thought. BUT B can never get the thought exactly right; language can never express all the nuances of thought.

Similarly, A hears him/herself talking, and the "code of language" is also reinterpreted by A into variants of the original thought. That's why language can sometimes influence and/or reinforce thought.

But language doesn't provide the basis for thought. E.g., if you're reading a textbook and you don't get something, you tend to read it over and over until it is internalized. But if language were the sole medium of thought in your brain, then that wouldn't make sense, because then the first time through WOULD have allowed you to understand the concept. Instead, the need to "repeat" and "internalize" so that you understand something means that your brain is trying to convert the language to something else - something more innate.

Another example: I spent a couple of minutes trying to phrase the above paragraph, even though I knew right at the beginning exactly what my point was. If thought really were linear streams of words, then wouldn't I simply have typed the paragraph once through, from beginning to end?

[Az]

Wording of entire paragraphs doesn't count, as it doesn't convey a single message, but an entire relationship of messages and information. Obviously, you either didn't know exactly what was your point or wrote a lot of it around, to phrase it more nicely, because a point can be passed through a single sentence, phrase.

Generally, you seem to equate entire passages with single thoughts. I don't think this is correct.