10.25.2008

Language and Thought


Language and thought are clearly related, but it's difficult to articulate what that relation is, precisely.
When I was an undergraduate (a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away), I wanted to write one of my final essays on the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis; my professor dismissed the idea, saying that it was already old news when he was an undergraduate. But it is surprisingly resilient (which Websters defines as, "tending to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change"), and versions of it persist to this day.
Despite our awareness of our own thinking while we're thinking in words, it's not the same as thought itself: "the sounds of language are the manifestations of thought that are most pungently present in our waking awareness, even if they are the tip of the iceberg of mental computation." -Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought.
Which is to say, we don't think using language, except in unusual circumstances.
Pinker also quotes Thomas Hobbes on the subject:
"Words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools."

3 comments:

BrianY said...

I only vaguely remember my half-baked undergraduate understanding of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, so I could be all wet here, but mightn't it be relevant to George Lakoff's work on framing ideas? (Did you go to hear him speak when he came to EC?) That how politicians & pundits determine the words that are to be used in political discourse essentially set the bounds for that discourse? This reminds me of what I remember of S-W, that the bounds of what one understands or has a frame of reference for are set by the language that one has acquired (??).

And is the picture meant to depict a rare moment of tenderness towards Miro on Mai's part, or the brief moment just before she gives him a hellacious shake?

Mr. Miro said...

I missed Lakoff at EC, I think because I had to teach (I can't imagine why else I'd have missed it). I haven't read any of Lakoff's work recently, but I think he defends a moderate version, that language influences how we think about things. But S-W go further, saying that we literally can't think outside of our linguistic box, and that's demonstrably wrong. Which is why it's surprising that it's still around, and taken seriously.
As for Mai, the first sketch had Mr. Miro protesting rather loudly, suggesting that perhaps she's already given him that hellacious shake.

Anonymous said...

I guess the weakest version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis would be something akin to George Lindbeck's work?