Robin Turner

Language reflects conceptual systems OR conceptual systems reflect language?

Also, I can't speak about this personally, but I know people who are bilingual/multilingual who say that they tend to think differently, depending on what language they're thinking in.

That could show something, or it could just show that they adopt cultural values along with the language and thus play 'the part' more.

I say it is hogwash because I and I am sure many many other people are entirely capable of thought and thinking without thinking 'in' a language. This is not to say I think without language exclusively. Nor is does it suggest our thoughts are all the same because they are all influenced by any number of biological and environmental conditions. Culture can, to a certain extent, get inside you, language to a far lesser degree. If the mind is embodied then how can a language restrict how that physical construct can work?

I do not believe Newspeak would work.

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Language reflects conceptual systems OR conceptual systems reflect language?

Um. Both?

I say it is hogwash because I and I am sure many many other people are entirely capable of thought and thinking without thinking 'in' a language.

But what about someone raised by the proverbial wolves? Or, to use a more realistic example, someone stuck in a closet her whole life? Someone who neither speaks nor comprehends any language at all. Can that person really have thoughts and ideas that are even SLIGHTLY as deep as those of a normally intelligent speaker of a language?

I don't think so! I would wager that they can only think about issues pertaining to survival and such ... but not deep philosophical theories or whatever. Like, they can notice correlations between injesting certain items and physical states that follow shortly thereafter (like, "Don't eat that, or you'll get sick"). But can they think about the angst and the ennui of the post-Industrial man? Ahaha.

If the mind is embodied then how can a language restrict how that physical construct can work?

It doesn't restrict it at all. It enhances it. And language is also embodied, in that it doesn't "exist" out there in abstract reality, or something.

Argh! I should REALLY be transcribing 100 minutes worth of taped interviews! Feel free to post some more. I need the distraction!

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Cog Sci 101 final

Analyse the implicit metaphors and/or image schemata of the following statement:

it doesn't "exist" out there in abstract reality

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Meh! I already got my B+ in cog sci 101! (Anna is bitter ... she could have gotten an A if she knew how to do those damned mental space diagrams correctly...)

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stark.livejournal.com

i am sure they can think about a lot of things but nothing you could comprehend because you do not understand their language (and indeed if it is language like we understand it). you are imposing restrictions of known language and ones that discuss these "concepts" (though hardly explain them or make them particularly interesting).
you impose limits on that which you do not know but assume you do.

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You impose limits on that which you do not know but assume you do.

I like that, I really do! Despite being more-or-less part of the cognitive linguistics camp, I feel that cogling has got to the point which generative linguistics reached around 1970 - that moment where you take a theory which explains certain things pretty well, and inflate it into some kind of dogmatic theory of everything. A little humility is called for, I think.

Tibetan Buddhists have identified around five stages between the first germination of a potential thought and its eventual mental expression. It's not surprising that they don't take Western psychology terribly seriously.

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I only said that this was my GUESS. I'm not assuming that I know everything -- I'm only assuming that I know enough to make guesses.

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stark.livejournal.com

well guess or not you still wrote it so i replied.

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Or, to use a more realistic example, someone stuck in a closet her whole life? Someone who neither speaks nor comprehends any language at all. Can that person really have thoughts and ideas that are even SLIGHTLY as deep as those of a normally intelligent speaker of a language?

I really can't say what they would think. Or even how. Being stuck in a cupboard means you are without ANY sensory input, more or less. Which of course would be reflected in ones ability to think about "deep" things. But it is not the same as someone who lives in a world of sensory errr stuff.

Deep thinking is only confused by the language one uses! How many times have I used that expression? Many. How much more is understood to me when I think of a tree than when I say to someone "a tree".

Consider the profound insight and clarity one experiences in mediation and other such practices, when one intentionally removes language and stuff from the mind!

I hope I don't appear to be arguing that language is useless or anything like that!

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I still doubt that a person without language, living in a world of "sensory stuff," could think "deep thoughts" as we know them. My guess is still that they could associate certain objects (e.g. certain mushrooms) with certain events (e.g. hallucinations), and things like that. But could they think about the same wacky things that Heidegger did? I would doubt it very much. His stuff was structured with language. Could they think "deep thoughts" on a similar level, yet totally different because not structured with language? I have no idea! I doubt it, but I have no idea! And I have no idea how we'd even go about FINDING OUT!

I've never meditated, but I don't believe it when it's said that "ALL" things are removed from the mind. The mind cannot be totally blank. And yes, they have done brain scans on people in deep meditation. There is brain activity aplenty! Unless they're, like, DEAD!

However, I do appreciate what you're saying about language confusing one's thinking. I am greatly disturbed by the way language can lead people astray. Like the whole damn sexuality thing. I'd be rich if I had a nickel for every girl who was depressed and confused because she was a "lesbian" yet had a "crush" on a boy. If there was no language with which to describe sexuality, I bet there wouldn't be people with "issues" and "problems" about their sexuality!

Maybe someone with no language wouldn't NEED to think deep thoughts, because language wouldn't be there confusing/provoking her in the first place!!!

I think you ARE arguing that language is useless! I think the two of us should just shut up and take it outside! Kapow! Hah.

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Actually I didn't respond correctly to your point about meditation. Allow me to start over. Even if one is deep in meditation, and even if one does manage to banish language from his consciousness during meditation (though I'm still not convinced that's even possible), do you think his thinking would still be influenced by the biases picked up from language?

The only nonlinguistic thought that I have some kind of an experience with is when I'm trying to express something in words but can't do it. You know, that frustrating feeling when you have something on the tip of your tongue, but can't articulate it. Usually my thoughts don't get CLEAR until I put them in language. Though there have been a few times when these nonlinguistic thoughts seemed incredibly clear, and I felt imbued with an enormous sense of understanding. It went away very quickly, though. Without language to trap it, this understanding was fleeting.

And don't bug me about the metaphors in the previous sentence. ;)

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The bias one picks up (or doesn't) is not from LANGUAGE but the ideas/thoughts which language conveys. This is why I hoped I didn't appear to be saying that language is unneccesary/useless.

Maybe I am entirely ignorant, but doesn't language convey meanings/thoughts, even if that language as the medium produces noise/ misinterpretation in the message etc etc.

I wouldn't attempt to deny that linguistic structures influence meaning and how meaning is reproduce, but I consider that OUTSIDE of the 'thought'.

As for clarity of thought. I understand what you mean by thoughts not being 'clear' until put into language. The nonlinguistic thoughts I experience are as entirely "Clear" in that they convey a "sense" of knowing, more of a bodily feeling than a solid structured thought. But no less an understanding and knowledge. Perhaps it is a cultural bias to need to organise the thoughts into (often written) language.

Brain activity during mediation is entire expected. We are clearing out CONSCIOUS minds, not our entire minds, which are no less ours. I would hazard a guess however, that the activity noted is not that which one would expect during conscious manipulation/use of linguistics.

I apologise to both of you for my vague and poor replies! rushing+ignorance!

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The bias one picks up (or doesn't) is not from LANGUAGE but the ideas/thoughts which language conveys.

But I think there ARE biases picked up from language -- my whole "sexuality" thing spoke directly to this issue. Even if someone managed to banish language from his head during deep meditation (which I'm not convinced is possible anyway), a contemporary speaker of English might still think of sexuality as being divided into three general categories -- homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual. This person still might conceive of himself as fitting into one of these categories, especially if one of them was a central part of his identity. So this person might still differentiate himself from other people based on these linguistic concepts.

Cultures that didn't distinguish sexuality in this way probably had no conceptions of these distinctions! Why should they? (And yeah, while this is speculation on my part, I WOULD love to research it. I guess I would begin by looking at pre-whitey Polynesian languages. [I understand those societies had virtually no sexual taboos.] How would I do that? Where do I look? Are they even recorded?)

I realize I may have something backwards. Bah. I will keep thinking about it. But why did English (and other languages) formulate these categories for sexuality in the first place? The words are probably some reflection of a thought process, but now these entrenched words influence the thought process. Where does it begin? What is the extent of it all?

I'm too tired and rushed right now to respond to the rest of your post for now, alas.

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There are some languages/cultures where only "passive" homosexuals have a specific word to describe them. I can't imagine this not having an effect on sexual behaviour.

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Yeah, there are some cultures (can't remember specifics) that don't consider the men who penetrate other men homosexual, while the man who is being penetrated is considered homosexual. The "passive" one is stigmatized while the "active" one is not.

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Even the idea of thinking in a language is dependent on the way language structures thought. The idea that thoughts casn somehow be "in" something is a metaphor based on the CONTAINER image schema. In other words, language is seen like a box that we can place ideas in, but there are other kinds of thoughts which are outside the box.

OK, let's imagine we use a different language, in which language does not take the equivalent of the preopsition "in". In this language, we don't say

Person(x) expresses idea(y) IN language(z)

we say

Person(x) expresses language(z) TYPE-OF idea(y)

Wouldn't that affect the way we thought about the relationship between language and thought?

Personally, I don't think that there are thoughts that are expressed in language and thoughts that aren't (though Kristian is certainly correct in saying that some thought is non-verbal). I just think that language is a particular kind of thinking. In other words, the medium is the message, though not quite in the sense that McLuhan intended.

What's the problem with Newspeak, by the way?

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It is double-plus ungood. Eh? Eh?

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My problem with Newspeak is that its purpose was to eradicate the possibility of any Anti-Party sentiment by the eradication of linguistic structures that would allow a subject to even THINK anti-party thoughts.

i.e by not having a language that could express "The Party is Bad" then the people would be unable to -think- "The Party is bad".

Which is pretty much at the crux of my argument here. I would say that even IF newspeak were perfected people would still be able (even though it would be difficult, though not because of linguistic restrictions, but from cultural ones) to have such revolutionary thoughts. How would they express them? well, the way we express new/revolutionary thoughts now - by creating new symbols for them.

(In a rush-Will reply to your imaginary example later, I think I know what is going on, but haven't the time to try and articulate it into the clunkiness of words!)

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Orwell's problem was that he knew a lot about language, but not that much about linguistics. The idea of the Party manipulating language so as to enforce ideological conformity is interesting, but the actual examples he gives are largely flawed, as far as I can remember (last read 1984 twenty years ago). I don't see why, to give one of his examples, the sentence "Big Brother is ungood" should be any less meaningful to a speaker of Newspeak than "Big Bro's a mofo" would be to a speaker of US English. To us, "ungood" signifies an absence of positive good rather than its scalar opposite (hey, we don't have these problems in Lojban - they based the grammar on Moore's Natural History of Negation). However, in a language which lacks a word for "bad", I'm pretty sure that "ungood" would come to mean "bad".

A totalitarian govenrment could maybe restrict people's ability to criticise by restricting vocabulary in other ways - the overall effect would be not to make them agree with the official ideology as such, but to lessen the effectiveness of criticism. Functional illiteracy does the same trick.

Actually, I quite like some of the changes to English found in Newspeak, such as getting rid of adverbs and irregular verbs.

Actually,

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But then it would be okay to say "the signs costed $400," and I'd be out of a job!

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Well, there was a time when "costed" was the correct past tense and past participle of "cost" (which was frequently spelt "coste" anyway).

Incidentally, I read somewhere that there are moves - how serious, I don't know - to establish a "European English" analogous to "British English", "American English" etc. This would be based on English as spoken in an EC context, and would include -ed as the universal past tense marker, and "isn't it" as the universal question tag (replacing "wasn't it", "aren't you" etc.).

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Can you help me settle this once and for all? What is "functional literacy" and what is "functional illiteracy"? What you seem to be calling "functional illiteracy" I thought was called "functional literacy." I am so confused, and HAVE been confused about this for the past four years or so.

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Functional literacy is having sufficient vocabulary and reading/writing skills to cope with the demands of everyday life; you may not be able to read Chaucer or write a sonnet, but you can read a newspaper and write a job application. Functional illiteracy is when you can't even do that.

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So what's the difference between illiteracy and functional illiteracy?

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My guess is that if you can just about get through Spot the Dog but can't fill in a job application form you're functionally illiterate without being totally illiterate.

There again ILLITERATE is one of those weird categories that change according to context and communicative intent, so I may describe a student as "illiterate" because they hadn't read Plato. Then you've got all the radial categories like COMPUTER ILLITERATE. In the context of the discussion of my last post, I could be described as "phenomenologically illiterate", perhaps!

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Also, mofo is passe among speakers of U.S. English. A more up-to-date equivalent would be something like, "Check it -- Big Bro's WACK y'all."

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"Wack"?? Since I don't listen to rap, my main source on American slang is South Park, but I suspect that there they frequently make up argot just to see if it will catch on. I mean, does anyone really say "That's absolutely tits" to mean that it's really good? (There again, in Britain, "It's the dog's bollocks" is actually a compliment!)

Actually, I have a couple of questions arising from Seinfeld.

1. Is "step off" the same as "back off"?
2. Does "I'm down" mean "I'm in"? And what kind of kooky image schema does that come from?

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