Does language affect thinking?

[SlaveofChrist]

Here is a theory that I developed... Does the language you speak limit, expand, or affect your thinking??
For example, if I were to speak Greek or another very precise language would my thought capabilities increase due to an increased vocabulary and precision in language?
Is that why there was so many great Greek Philosophers?

Does the fact that I know only English limit my ability to think?

I would like to know what you guys think. Have a good day, God Bless.

John 3:17

[Vorkosigan]

Today @ 09:40 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=71832#post71832)
SlaveofChrist:

Here is a theory that I developed... Does the language you speak limit, expand, or affect your thinking??
For example, if I were to speak Greek or another very precise language would my thought capabilities increase due to an increased vocabulary and precision in language?
Is that why there was so many great Greek Philosophers?

Does the fact that I know only English limit my ability to think?

I would like to know what you guys think. Have a good day, God Bless.

John 3:17


This question is so complex that it is difficult for any kind of answer to give it justice. First, no language is "more precise" than other. Different languages cut up the world in different ways. How would you measure the precision of language?

Furthermore, whatever the language, professional thinkers soon come to realize that ordinary language is not precise enough for philosophy, so they develop or borrow specialized terms for the technical ideas they need to express. For example, "fetch" means one thing to a boy playing with his dog, quite another to an oceanographer. English frequently borrows words when we lack one in our own language. In other words, even in areas where a language lacks precision or expression, people soon invent and extend a vocabulary to express their thoughts.

On a more practical level, language certainly limits thinking. Consider that the vast majority of high quality scientific and philosophical papers are written in English. Although translation is possible, it is expensive and limited. Most of this never reaches non-English speakers. So if you don't read English, there are many kinds of thoughts you might not hear about or learn to think.

And finally, there were great philosophers in many areas of the ancient world. But Greece was special to Europe, so it has become special to us.

Vorkosigan

[djnoz]

This is really interesting. In "1984" they have this language called 'newspeak' that the government use to try and prevent negative thoughts. In this way the people cannot think ill of the government. For instance, the word 'bad' is not used - the word 'ungood' is used instead.

I still reckon you can think without the words to describe what you are thinking - it's just a lot harder because you cannot be specific. Some other cultures use much more ambigious language and therefore rely on facial expressions to get their thoughts across. It applies to english too - that's we have all these smilies :smile:

[SlaveofChrist]

First, no language is "more precise" than other.

I would disagree with that. The reason that I believe Greek to be more precise than English is that it has more adjectives to describe one event, emotion, action, etc. For example, all we can really say is love. They have agape, philia, etc. to describe different types of love. That is not the perfect example but it illustrates my point.
When you have many words available in order to describe your thinking, then you are able to access those words with ease when describing a difficult thought.
Fortunately I am not defending this theory as absolute truth because I would probably lose but I think certain aspects of it are true.


In "1984" they have this language called 'newspeak' that the government use to try and prevent negative thoughts.

I have read that book, thoroughly enjoyed it, and I just finished writing a 6 page paper on it a few days ago. That is very true. It seems as though newspeak did have an affect on their thinking and I dont think it would be any different outside of Orwell's little world.
It is often said in the world of cheesy sports cliches that "cant is not a part of my vocabulary" This obviously promotes positive thought. It seems to distract the mind from negative thoughts when you use all positive words.

[quetzalphoenix]

Today @ 10:40 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=71832#post71832)
SlaveofChrist:

Here is a theory that I developed... Does the language you speak limit, expand, or affect your thinking??

How about a counter question.... can you separate thinking / speaking a language so clearly? You seem to assume some kind of inner thing of "thinking" which is different than speaking. I've been reading Wittgenstein for a class recently, which makes me question a lot of my assumptions in that area. (Now I don't claim to UNDERSTAND him, but what I've read has challenged my presuppositions).

I guess I wonder if our thought/speech are more closely related, in which case the answer to your question would be "yes," but maybe in a more expansive way.

And as to the questions of precision and articulation, I would have to ask, "Precise for what purpose?" Some languages have an incredible number of words for color, others have very "restricted" expressions of time/aspect in comparison to Greek, for example... but if the language serves in its culture, then I would have to say it is as "precise" as it needs to be.

[spacemanspiff]

" Here is a theory that I developed... Does the language you speak limit, expand, or affect your thinking?? "

not to bust your buble but unless you came up with that 100 years ago then you have been scooped.

that's a major theory in cogntive science. there's been tons of work done on it for years. it even has a name, the "Sapir-Worf" hypothesis.

the short answer is yes. depending you who you ask. consult you local psychology dept.

though if I were you i wouldn't call it "my theory", that's kinda like walking into a physics dept and saying you have an idea about this thing call "gravity". they my laugh at you:teeth:

if you really want details i can give you some. but i don't want to go into longwinded mode unless requested.

[zionstructure]

Does language affect thinking?

Well language represents what is most important to us. Look at the English language and our culture, we have more slang words for sex, drugs, and money than any other topic. Looking at another culture, the eskimos have over 200 different words to describe "snow". So i think thinking affects language, and i suppose it would work in reverse as well.



:cheers:

[nomad]

You seem to assume some kind of inner thing of "thinking" which is different than speaking.


i haven't read what you mentioned, but i _definitely_ think this is true... i am constantly forgetting the words for things; i know the CONCEPT i want to express, and i know there's a word for the exact concept, yet all i can pull up is words that are close (and then remember a few days later :)

now, the question may be: since i knew the word, can i know a concept for which i do not have a word (or words) for? that's different i guess. but i know that when i speak, sometimes the 'thought' cannot immediately be expressed in words.

[quetzalphoenix]

Yesterday @ 05:33 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=77589#post77589)
nomad:



i haven't read what you mentioned, but i _definitely_ think this is true... i am constantly forgetting the words for things; i know the CONCEPT i want to express, and i know there's a word for the exact concept, yet all i can pull up is words that are close (and then remember a few days later :)

now, the question may be: since i knew the word, can i know a concept for which i do not have a word (or words) for? that's different i guess. but i know that when i speak, sometimes the 'thought' cannot immediately be expressed in words.

I don't profess to know the answers to these questions, I'm just throwing out some thoughts. Here's a quote to chew on.

"We are trying to get hold of the mental process of understanding which seems to be hidden behind these coarser and therefore more readily visible accompaniments. But we do not succeed; or rather, it does not get as far as a real attempt. For even supposed I had found something that happened in all those cases of understanding,--why should it be teh understanding? And how can te=h process of understanding have been hidden, when I said "Now I understand" because I understood?! And if I say it is hidden--then how do I know what I have to look for? I am in a muddle." PI, 153.

[garthoverman]

04-18-2003 @ 08:22 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=72258#post72258)
quetzalphoenix:

How about a counter question.... can you separate thinking / speaking a language so clearly? You seem to assume some kind of inner thing of "thinking" which is different than speaking. I've been reading Wittgenstein for a class recently, which makes me question a lot of my assumptions in that area. (Now I don't claim to UNDERSTAND him, but what I've read has challenged my presuppositions).

I guess I wonder if our thought/speech are more closely related, in which case the answer to your question would be "yes," but maybe in a more expansive way.
My two cents on the matter:

Language is a mental constuction that consists of symbols and a syntax that, when assembled, stand for agreed-upon realities (be they objects, actions, relations, whathaveyou). The "agreements" are learned and eventually serve as a basis of a sort of telepathy, i.e. I say/write "car" and you think of an automobile. The word "car" is NOT the automobile; its a symbol, yet when two people speak the same language they can thereby commune in the experiece of "car" without needing an actual physical car in their presence in order to share the experience.

The REALLY fascinating thing is that physical reality itself may simply be another type of language. In this language, physical objects are the symbols and physical laws are the syntax. What most people fail to realize is that phsyical laws are NOT "out there" in the universe, but are instead "in here" (points to head). IOW, physical laws are also mental contructions. Furthermore, its is becoming apparent that physical objects do not necessarily contain the realities that they represent to us, i.e. we perceive objects in 3 dimensions, yet reality actually exists multidimensionally beyond length, width, and depth. Last count I saw, physicists were dealing with elementary particles existing in upwards of 10 or more dimensions. This leads me to imagine that physical objects as we typically perceive them are like words in a language: they stand for a reality and have agreed-upon meaning, but do not contain the actual reality. In fact, there must always be a gap between the actual reality and its interpretation (which is what mentally contructed symbols are: interpretations).

Think about it like this: we both know what the word "car" means. We can exchange ideas about what cars are and what they are not. What we can NEVER know, is what the experience of "car" is like to the other person. This goes for BOTH the word "car" AND the actual object. Its like wondering if what YOU see as "blue" is actually blue to other people, as if - looking through their eyes - the sky appears yellow, yet that person has ALWAYS seen it that way and everybody agrees that they sky is blue so that person learns to call that color blue. Other physical attributes are the same: size, mass, velocity, texture, etc... We have (mentally) contructed a basis for arriving at agreed-upon values for those attributes (i.e. physical laws), but that basis does NOT contain the reality! Whatever we may agree is "3 feet long and 2 feet across" doesn't mean that you and I perceive identical realities. Instead, we have learned to frame our experience in those terms. So reliant are we upon this framework, that frequently we mistake the symbols for the reality, which is really the point I'm getting at. Yes, language compartmentalizes your experience unnecessarily. While useful, it is advantageous to "think outside the lines" that language and physical reality can sometimes draw around you and your experiences. Learning new languages can help get outside those lines, and that goes for verbal AND physical language.

Anyways, just some random ramblings on a Friday morning whilst I sip my coffee... maybe I should switch to Sanka....

Yours,
Garth :thumb:

[djdavo]

04-25-2003 @ 04:51 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=78497#post78497)
garthoverman:
Its like wondering if what YOU see as "blue" is actually blue to other people, as if - looking through their eyes - the sky appears yellow, yet that person has ALWAYS seen it that way and everybody agrees that they sky is blue so that person learns to call that color blue.


yes,but you can objectively test this. you can show "old yelloweye" (heheheheh) other blue things (IE things that only reflect the blue frequencies in the light spectrum), and determine if their eyes are functioning correctly.


onto the question "Does language affect thinking?" hmmm..i suppose what an earlier poster said: thinking affects our language..and vice versa.

and Greek language may be more accurate,but the CONTEXT isn't. you can say in Greek " I philos my brother", which would mean platonic,brotherly love...or i can say "I love my brother".
by the same token you can say "I agape my wife" or in english "I love my wife" and it means the same thing....

[Warcraft3]

garthoverman:

Anyways, just some random ramblings on a Friday morning whilst I sip my coffee... maybe I should switch to Sanka....

Yours,
Garth

Im not sure why, but I found that statement very funny.:lol:



Russ

[garthoverman]

Today @ 01:08 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=84582#post84582)
djdavo:

yes,but you can objectively test this. you can show "old yelloweye" (heheheheh) other blue things (IE things that only reflect the blue frequencies in the light spectrum), and determine if their eyes are functioning correctly.
All that would determine is that he associates the same frequency of light with the label "blue." That doesn't allow us to conclude that his experience of "blueness" is identical to ours. You might do a Google search for Chalmer's Hard Problem for some insight into this.

Yours,
Garth

[garthoverman]

Today @ 01:15 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=84588#post84588)
steadele:

Im not sure why, but I found that statement very funny.:lol:

Thanks, Russ, but I can't take full credit for it. I robbed the line (and adapted it) from a movie called "Fast Times at Ridgemont High."

Yours,
Garth

[Vorkosigan]

I would disagree with that. The reason that I believe Greek to be more precise than English is that it has more adjectives to describe one event, emotion, action, etc. For example, all we can really say is love. They have agape, philia, etc. to describe different types of love. That is not the perfect example but it illustrates my point.

Slave, there are two problems with this. First, we can identify many areas where English is more precise than Greek (for example, technical vocabulary) using the one-word-per-concept measurement. Second, why do you accept that "one word per concept" is the measure of precision? Like I said, how does one measure precision in language?

When you have many words available in order to describe your thinking, then you are able to access those words with ease when describing a difficult thought.

HHmmmmm....if you are an educated and adept language user, then you can access those words. Note that English has all those words -- it borrowed them from Greek!

Vorkosigan

[Homie]

The answear is: no.

[SlaveofChrist]

by the same token you can say "I agape my wife" or in english "I love my wife" and it means the same thing....

DJdavo, not to be rude, but that is completely untrue. Agape implies a completely unconditional love despite any change of circumstances. You may love your wife that way but many people dont.
If precision can be measured by the amount of words it takes to make a point, then Greek wins in this case.
It is a really difficult question, but I tend to think that language does affect thinking.
And I am sorry about saying it is "my theory". I had just never heard it before.