The Philosophy of Language: Does Language Affect the Way I Think?
As a scholar of the English language, the effect that a certain word or phrase can have on the mentality of those who come across it is very intriguing to me. When asked the question, “does language make me think the way I do?” I am not at all hesitant to answer affirmatively. I do believe language has at least some effect on the way each of us perceives the world. This does not, however, mean that I believe that our minds are controlled by the language we speak, or that we are incapable of imagining constructs absent in our own language. My opinion is simply that we cannot possibly be unaffected by the true meanings of the words we use and hear.
In a passage entitled “The Language Instinct,” Stephen Pinker explains how he believes the assumption that we cannot have thoughts without words to communicate them in is completely inaccurate. He denies the idea that differences among language can create differences in the thoughts of the speakers. Pinker is also of the opinion that language is no inhibitor to free thought. One of the ideas Pinker presents to support this view is the common occurrence of people saying things with a misconstrued meaning. Saying something you “didn’t mean to say,” he argues, is proof that there are thoughts and ideas that cannot be accurately expressed by language. By the same token he argues that it is often difficult to find the right words for what we truly mean to say. For some things it even seems as if there are no words to express a feeling or emotion. This supports the idea that thought is independent from language, not dependent upon it.
Pinker also argues that without thoughts independent from words it would be difficult if not impossible to create new words, or translate from one language to another. He explains that when we hear or read something, we often remember just the gist of the material, and not the words. Under the aforementioned idealism, it would be impossible to recognize the idea behind an argument without remembering the exact wording of it. Another argument Pinker uses to support his belief is the idea that dogs cannot talk, but we do not automatically assume that this indicates they are unconscious of their surroundings. He further disputes the idea of thought from language, saying that it is outdated, and was only an acceptable idea when scientists were less informed about the proper method of assessing thought. He believes that the only reason thought and language were thought to be the same thing was that words were more “palpable” than thoughts.
Pinker was also adamantly against the linguistic determinism hypothesis, which states that the structure of thought of a certain person is based on the structure of that person’s language. In his refute of these claims, however, he attacks the quality of the research itself along with the conclusions drawn from it. Pinker argues that to draw these conclusions the examples given had to be horrible underrepresented. He reminds us that just as easily as the English sentence, “he invites people to a feast,” can become, “he goes for eaters of cooked food,” in Apache, the English phrase, “he walks,” can be translated into the English, “as solitary masculinity, leggedness proceeds.” From this argument, Pinker explains that though grammatically these other languages are unlike our way of speaking, the ideas behind them are not so unlike our way of thinking. This he uses to further support that languages and concepts are independent. As he so elegantly puts it, verbal language is not required for a person to be able to understand “mentalese.”
In the excerpt from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, the author’s stance on language is clearly and cleverly portrayed through the dialogue of the characters, Alice and Humpty Dumpty, the latter of whom is portrayed as a snooty, curmudgeonly character, and set in his ways. In the story, Alice happens upon Humpty Dumpty sitting on his wall, and starts up a conversation with him. He asks her what her name is, and then upon learning it proclaims it a bad name because it does not serve any purpose besides being a name: it does not provide any discerning information about its bearer. His name, in contrast, provides the useful information of what shape he is. Because the child’s name does not have any referent, he reasons it is a bad name, and is an empty word.
Wishing to change the subject, Alice comments on the beauty of an article of clothing that encircles Humpty Dumpty, which she at first confuses to be a belt, but he claims is a cravat. At first he is upset that she does not know how to determine a belt from a cravat. She is also upset by this, but is more preoccupied with not being able to determine his neck from his waist. It is only when Alice admits her ignorance that Humpty Dumpty becomes slightly more forgiving of her. Instead he focuses on her compliment, and agrees that yes, the cravat he wears is beautiful. It is seen through this exchange that even though something might be addressed incorrectly, the wrong name does not necessarily change the subject. Even though she called his clothing by the wrong name, he was still able to determine to what she was referring. This indicates that a word does not alter the state of a thought or concept.
Humpty Dumpty then tells Alice that the cravat was an un-birthday gift. After explaining to her that an un-birthday was any day that is not your birthday, Humpty hears that Alice prefers birthday presents. He proclaims this as foolish, and has her demonstrate to him that there are 364 times as many un-birthdays in a year as there are birthdays (365 days minus one birthday). Without actually saying it, Humpty Dumpty explains that any gift you get on any of the 364 days when it is not your birthday is every bit as good as if you received that gift on the one day when it was your birthday. He has demonstrated that not unlike the logic of the cravat, the day a gift was given does not at all affect the quality of the gift. It is the word “birthday” itself that excites her, not the prospect of receiving. The language, therefore, does hold some weight.
The tone of the conversation then shifts, and Humpty Dumpty explains that he has used the word “glory” to mean “a knockdown argument.” She counters that that is not at all what “glory” means, but he insists that the meaning of his word is only what he meant by it, and has no conventional referent whatsoever. She does not believe it is right of him to have changed the meaning of the word on a whim to suit his needs, but he assures her that the issue lies in his taking ownership of his words, not in his changing their meanings. He then goes on to use the word “impenetrability” to mean “we’ve had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you’d mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here all the rest of your life.” She berates him for assigning such a lengthy meaning to his word, but he assures her his words receive proper “payment” for their duties.
In changing the meaning of his words, Humpty Dumpty has made it that much harder for Alice to be able to understand what he says. He has created phrases for which there are double meanings, when there exist enough of such phrases already. Even in this same conversation, Humpy and Alice misunderstand each other without either of them trying to create disconnect. When Humpty first uses the word “un-birthday” Alice asks, “I beg your pardon?” Humpty replies that she has not offended him, but she clarifies that she meant that she did not understand what he said.
Phrases and expressions such as this are commonly misconceived, especially by foreigners unfamiliar with the nuances or euphemisms of a new language. Often the expressions seem to make no sense, but upon closer inspection the thought process is similar to the referent, and the expression becomes universal. One example of this is the French phrase “le coup de foudre,” which literally translated means “the blow of lightening,” or, in a word, “thunder.” This phrase as an idiom, however, means, “love at first sight.” This may seem obscure at first, but can be rationalized by the thought that love at first sight is often as unplanned, and may be as powerful as thunder or lightening (as it happens, we have a similar expression in English; we call it “thunderstruck,” which means to be awed speechless). We see in this instance that the same meaning and basic concept has been given two very specifically different forms of expression. It is this same logic Humpty uses to justify assigning a single name (impenetrability) to a long set of phrases.
I do not personally believe thoughts and language to be so very completely independent from each other. They seem to have the much more intertwined, entangled relationship of a pair of lovers. The words someone speaks to you definitely affect the thoughts you have. Conversely, the way you think about something has an effect on they specific words you select to convey your meaning. As much as this enhances the meaning of the language, it is virtually impossible that two people have had exactly the same experiences, and think about anything in a similar enough way so as to have the same association of a word. This creates a paradox, in which even though we convey more meaning through our words, we are less likely to fully understand each other’s true meaning, and the emotions we wish to convey through our words.
For example: when a person (we shall call Cedric) thinks a thought he wishes to convey (let us use a frozen pineapple drink) to his girlfriend (we shall call her Melinda), he might use the word “slurpee,” having grown up a block away from a 7-11. Melinda, who grew up in Alaska where there are neither 7-11 stores or need for frozen drinks, has no idea what a “slurpee” is, but hears the onomatopoeia “slurp,” and thinks of soft drinks. To her, the idea of a pineapple-flavored soft drink is ridiculous and almost repulsive, and she thinks Cedric quite strange. If he had used the word “slushy,” however, she would have associated the word “slush” with a wet form of snow common to Alaska, and would have better understood the concept he was trying to explain to her.
In this example, the thoughts that Cedric is thinking have affected the word he selected. Perhaps the particular item he was trying to explain was in fact shaved ice made from pineapple juice. Because of the experiences he has had in his life, he chose a word to associate with a texture. The word Cedric chose also affected the way Melinda thought about the item. Although Pinker presents a very substantial argument for “mentalese” existing even without spoken language (the idea that thoughts can exist without words), those without language in any form whatsoever would feel extremely solitary in any endeavors. To think that no other person in the world could possibly understand what you really mean by your words is a lonely enough feeling. To not be able to convey any meaning to anyone else, and live your live based solely on firsthand experiences must be much more so.
As is the case with Carroll’s character Humpty Dumpty, one person cannot grasp the full extent of another’s meaning without first realizing what each individual word means to the speaker. When Humpty starts assigning lengthy meanings to randomized words, however, it is apparent that he is trying to confuse Alice. As is indicated here, the true meaning of a word can only reliably be perceived by its user.
As to the original question of whether language has any effect on the process of thought, it seems the currently perceived truth is much more complicated than a simple codependence. It appears much more likely that language and thought are engaged in an interdependent relationship, from which neither can be removed. To remove one or the other would be to remove either communication of great thought, or to remove great thought from communication. Either way, the resulting scenario would be dumb.