Is Language Necessary For Thought?

[no yu begin wher i end]

This was the subject of an essay I had to write within the context of this poem by Aharon Amir:

 

i woke up at night and my language was gone

no sign of language no writing no alphabet

nor symbol nor word in any tongue

and raw was my fear - like the terror perhaps

of a man flung from a treetop far above the ground

a shiprewcked person on a tide-engulfed sandbank

a pilote whose parachute would not open

or the fear of a stone in a bottomless pit

and the fright was unvoiced unletteret unuttered

and inarticulate O how inarticulate

and i was alone in the dark

a non-i in the all-pervading gloom

with no grasp no leaning point

everything stripped of everything

and the sound was speechless and voiceless

and i was naught and nothing

without even a gibbet to hang onto

without a single peg to hang onto

and i no longer knew who or what i was

and i was no more

 

This is my essay:

 

René Descartes is flying in an airplane. The flight attendant asks him if he wants some coffee. He replies, “I think not,” and disappears. In the context of the poem by Aharon Amir, this is quite simple. Without language you cannot have thought. And when you don’t have thought, you cease to be who you are: calm, rational, and coherent. Language is absolutely necessary for thought. Without language, we would not be able to know anything; our lives would be completely instinctual, with no rationality to our actions. Without language, we cannot communicate with ourselves: reading, talking, writing.

 

First and foremost, language is used for communication. Not just communication with others, but with ourselves. Who do we communicate the most with? Ourselves. We need to tell ourselves to breathe. Even now, as I write this, I am thinking to myself, processing everything I can remember that I was told or I read over the course of this unit. My thoughts are my way of using language to process the data communicated to me, so that I may communicate my thoughts with you.

 

Some people subscribe to the school of “if you can’t say it, you don’t know it.” This is wrong for a few simple reasons. First off: dyslexia. The Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary defines dyslexia as: disturbance of the ability to use language. A dyslexic person has trouble putting words together, and comprehending written language. Just because a dyslexic person can’t express coherently what’s on their mind, doesn’t mean that they don’t know anything. Similarly, there are feelings that can’t be conveyed, and descriptions that can’t quite be expressed. In the case of feelings, the very fact that they can’t be conveyed should be able to tell us that that feeling is to the extreme, therefore we can know, somewhat, what the feeling is. The inexpressible description can come, for example, in the form of a movie. I can watch a movie on television, but have difficulty telling someone else what it’s about. I’ve watched it from the beginning, and I can understand the plot and follow what’s going on with relative ease, but I just don’t know how to describe it to someone else in a way that they would understand. The language I absorb help me to know what is going on around me.

 

Amir’s poem describes a person engulfed in fear from waking up to having no language, no form of communication, and no way to know who they are. After all, what better way to define who we are than by the way we think, which in turn guides all our actions? When we cannot define ourselves, we cease to exist as people. Without language, we cannot express our thoughts. There are people who claim to have been discouraged from committing suicide thanks to a certain song or what have you. People have been known to explode with emotion from keeping their thoughts to themselves because they have no one to talk to. Without language to guide us, society becomes a massive, quivering, unstable crowd that will give in to its own violent impulses.

 

But when we do have language, but no will or means to filter through the muck, we also will have serious problems. Propagandists have been exploiting the vagueness within language for generations, using: word games with what some call “glittering generalities,” name calling, and euphemisms; false connections; special appeals such as “the common touch,” the bandwagon, and – perhaps the most powerful appeal – fear. We’ve seen extreme uses of propaganda before (Nazi Germany), and we still see it today in the manifestos and platforms of various political parties. To a lesser degree, even MADD uses fear propaganda to press their message, but in the case of MADD, is that really a bad thing? In the case of Nazi Germany, the people were led by a charismatic madman who understood the power fear could wield in people. Hitler identified a threat (the Jews), he had a specific recommendation for how the people should react (violence against the Jews), and his magnetism while speaking ensured that the people would listen. The majority of the German people, in turn, essentially gave themselves up to be used as pawns in the Nazi war machine.

 

This is justly the greatest purpose of language: to guide our thoughts to become the people who we choose to be, not the people that others would have us be. Like the last two lines of Aharon Amir’s poem state, “and I no longer knew who or what I was/and I was no more,” a lack of language is a lack of thought and therefore a lack of self.

 

To further back up that language has an effect on thought is Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (SWH). In the most general form, it basically states that the language one speaks has a direct influence on the way one thinks and acts. We were given a paper written by a linguist who performed an experiment to test SWH. His subject was a Japanese-American woman. He would ask her questions in Japanese and get "type A" responses. Then he would ask her the exact same questions in English, and she would give "type B" responses that were totally different from the responses she gave in Japanese.

 

The article suggests that this is also a cultural difference as well, which also suggests the importance of languages as a means of cultural preservation. It's a shame that so many are disappearing.

 

But anyhoo..what are your thoughts on this subject?

[Dan #2]

The only thing i read was the title...

 

I actually gave this quite a lot of thought, during my long hours spent in the dish-pit of swiss chalet.

 

I realized i don't think in a language. It's like thinking is a language. Then i thought that if we could communicate through thoughts, we wouldn't ever need to worry about billinguillism(sp?).

[no yu begin wher i end]

That's interesting. I've never noticed that I think in English, because I've always assumed that since I talk, read, and write English I think in English as well. Although I do take a bit of issue with not having to worry about bilingualism. If SWH is correct (which to me seems pretty likely), then languages are central components of cultures, and to have only one uniform language would aid in the eradication of virtually every culture on earth. Yeah, I'm a pessimist sometimes. ;)

 

As well, while "thinking is it's own language" is an interesting theory, I don't agree with it. I believe you need some sort of language to go into your mind first before you're able to form thoughts, be they written words, spoken words, or even body language. They're all forms of communication, which is a primary role of language.

[Seanathon]

Do animals think? If so, in what language, sounds? Serious question.

 

Before babies learn words, what do think in? do they think?

 

Confusing

[Moonlight_Graham]

Do deaf people think in sign-language?

[supercanuk]

Language is simply symbols. Infact humans are hard-wired for language as a species, look at the work of Noam Chomsky a linguistics prof at MIT if you dont believe me. In terms of symbols babys yes use symbols as well to communicate, and in turn, we use symbols to communicate with them until they learn language, which is yes again, symbols haha. So animals do use symbols as well to communicate, for example showing the teeth i believe is aggression? Im not fully positive on that one so don't quote me or anything, and infact this meant the same thing to our ancestors homo sapeins i believe. Its a very complex issue i have studied in my psychology and ethics class and at present have not the time ot get into the complexities, but if anyone is interested you can email me: [email protected] and i can explain the origins of language in a better context beucase right now i gatta get my ass to class!

[supercanuk]

Okay, well for starters what you are speaking to is how when a human has been isolated from other human interaction it does not learn the language WE know, not the language that is used by the society it belongs to. Animals use language too we are not speaking in terms of Enlgish or French or whatever, you have to get past this and see that symbols are a form of language,

Language is hard wired into our DNA, this is only one link, you have to do your own research into this topic, find me CREDIBLE contradictory evidence i will examine it myself and use the universial criteria for premiss acceptability to determine its relevance and acceptability. You dont have to agree with me, I will accept if i am wrong or not if you show me evidence that we are not hard-wired for it. I have given you one, just one link, that supports my claim, and we can keep going at this for weeks if you want to step up and show me evidence of your claim.

[Spritzup]

Pretty fancy way to say 'FUCK OFF, you're an idiot and I don't care what you say'

[no yu begin wher i end]

Pretty fancy way to say 'FUCK OFF, you're an idiot and I don't care what you say'

There's a reason this is in the 'Debate' forum, though.

[Spritzup]

Yeah, but that's not condusive to a debate.

[no yu begin wher i end]

All the same, how did you get a "fuck off" out of his reply?

[supercanuk]

saladbowl i did not mean to offend, I learned this stuff in University as fact, so when I saw what you wrote i assumed you were trying to say i was wrong which is fine if you can prove it, but i didnt mean to stirr any real debate i just wanted to know if i was wrong lol but yah i didnt mean it insulting so please dont take it that way.

[ToadMan]

I think we need to more clearly define the concept of language. At present we are debating based on an unclear definition. For example, are abstractions considered language? You mind thinks in pictures, don't believe me? Elephant. So is an abstraction a form of language? Is intuitively understanding a concept a form of language?

 

I would argue that abstract concepts are not languages as such. They convey information only to the individual. They present no means to transfer that information to another person. I would say that I mostly think in english when I am forming speak, or writing. However when I am performing complex arithmetic, what language is that? What about when I am drawing or writing music. What about when I am playing sports? The latter being the best example of a time when we use only abstract concepts.

 

Peace

[juanpe]

speech is not the only way of communication or thought... for example, think of deaf and specially mute people: they communicate in the same way as a person who speaks but with a different communication code (either gestures or sign language) and they think and express their own thoughts, in a different way as us who speak, but they express it

 

it is a very fascinating topic (Neurolinguistics is called) because you study how words and thoughts are stored in the brain and how they are expressed though speech or through other communicative codes

[no yu begin wher i end]

I would argue that abstract concepts are not languages as such. They convey information only to the individual. They present no means to transfer that information to another person. I would say that I mostly think in english when I am forming speak, or writing. However when I am performing complex arithmetic, what language is that? What about when I am drawing or writing music. What about when I am playing sports? The latter being the best example of a time when we use only abstract concepts.

 

Peace

If an abstract concept isn't a form of language, then how can it still affect our thoughts? When they convey information to only one person, is that not communication - of which you need some form of language in order to use?

 

When you use arithmetic, that's still a language. True, there are some things you can't say with it, but there's plenty of other languages that don't have words that are contained in other languages. (For example, 'schenenfreude,' which means "taking pleasure in the misfortune of others" in German and yet there isn't an English word that means the same thing.) Even to spell out actual words, that's where you can use cryptography to rewrite messages using (in some cases) advanced mathematics.

 

This may sound corny, but I do believe that music is a language, albeit a language that focuses on emotions more than anything else. But it can still convey ideas that you could convey by speaking. For example, 'Fables of Faubus' by Charles Mingus. It was written as a direct protest against Arkansas governor Orval E. Faubus, who in 1957 sent out the National Guard to prevent the integration of Little Rock Central High School by nine African American teenagers. Listen to it and try and figure out Mingus' opinion of Faubus. Military marches are often played with an energetic gusto so that the people will be enthusiastic for the army and associate it with glory and victory and thus support it. Propagandistic? Sure, but it's still language.

 

What about when you play sports? Your coach will often tell you what to do, either verbally or with diagrams. These diagrams "speak" to you and tell you what you need to know. It's like sign language, actually, with the use of symbols to convey ideas.

[ToadMan]

But none of your examples actually consider how we understand things. How information is stored in our brains. It is simple to assert that our actual understanding is a language, but if that language would be non-mutual (i.e. could not be understood by another) then is it a language at all. When I talked about sports I meant the actual feelings, and thoughts when your on the field. A basketball player doesn't have the words describing, or the pictures depicting how to do a free throw when he/she stands at the line. They simply understand the motion and execute it. There is not language involved. Often they are not even cognizant of their thoughts during the action. The motion is understood by abstract, not by language.

 

Peace

[no yu begin wher i end]

How did the basketball player learn to shoot those free throws? Someone probably coached them, helped them fix their mistakes, and gave them advice. That is, if they were a really good player who practised free throws a lot until it becomes second nature. A poorer player would probably have to think about what they're doing, make sure they don't go over the line, aim, and calculate how much force they'll have to use (at least that's what I used to go through whenever I played. I was never very good at it, so I'd spend a few seconds analyzing the situation before I made my shot). Even the best players, however, will take a second or two to aim before they shoot. I think that what you're talking about is instinct, something which I consider to be quite different from thought.

 

I disagree when you say that there is no language involved in shooting a free throw. The required information is stored in the brain, and then some sort of signal, usually an order from the ref, will bring that information to the surface so the player can use. Language=trigger, if you will.

[ToadMan]

True, but the action itself is disassociated from the language element that cues them. My dog understands commands, do that me it understands english?

 

The action is not understood in terms of language, but more in terms of concept.

 

Peace

[juanpe]

there are some sites (used in Neurolinguistics) which talk about how languages and information are stored in the brain;

 

http://www.thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/i/i_01..._01_cr_fon.html

 

http://www.thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/i/i_07.../i_07_s_tra.htm

 

http://chd.gse.gmu.edu/immersion/knowledge...essingmodel.htm

 

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/newton/askas...logy/bio024.htm

[no yu begin wher i end]

True, but the action itself is disassociated from the language element that cues them. My dog understands commands, do that me it understands english?

 

The action is not understood in terms of language, but more in terms of concept.

 

Peace

Right, the action and the language cue are seperate things. But that's not to say that you can have the action without any language at all. There still has to be something to trigger the action, and that something is language. Your dog doesn't understand English anymore than I understand Spanish because I know what "no moleste por favor" and "Felize Navidad" mean (honsetly, that's about it). It still triggers a response, and Spanish is still obviously a language.

 

Language can be used to understand the concept that in turn facilitates the action. In this way, they go hand in hand. Getting back to the basketball example, you hear the whistle blow, so you know to stop the play (younger players have a tendency to keep going and someone has to tell them - usually their coach - that they have to stop). You look at the ref, and you see his hand is made into a fist, so that sign tells you a foul has occurred. Then the ref will say something like "shooting two" and you go to shoot your free throws. All this language helps in understanding the concept of fouls and the actions/consequences of them. To say that an action is only understood more in concept and not at all in terms of language would be wrong (at least in my opinion, anyway) because I believe that the two do go together.