Is it possible to think without language? How does language extend, direct, or even limit thinking?

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Hwang

Min Hwang

November 1, 2003

Mr. Cannon

Is it possible to think without language? How does language extend, direct, or even limit thinking?

        Language is a communicative tool, in the form of a structured set of oral, written, or gesticulated symbols, inherent and exclusive to our species, and in many ways can be considered an epitome of intellectual manifestation. This Way of Knowing has been around for millennia, and has been used for communication and expression from one individual to another. It is of very little dispute of the highly ubiquitous nature of language in relation to thought, but many questions still rage on about the effect language has on our thinking. Language is necessary for most types of advanced thinking; although there are certain cases where language is of no fundamental necessity. As to its influence to the way we think, language may be used to extend, direct, and at times even limit thinking – but only does so when used by people with that purpose. Language is a very powerful tool, but it is precisely that – a tool, and our ability to think is this tool’s owner and user.

        As we think throughout the day, we utilize language as a tool to aid us. At a day and age where knowledge and its communication are based on language, it would be an extremely arduous if not an impossible task to think about knowledge in an advanced manner without language. Many things that entice us to think, such as books, lectures, songs, and poems, are delivered to us linguistically coded, and instead of deciphering them into some sort of primitive thought, it is much simpler and allows for more manipulation of ideas if we implement language from a fundamental level to understand and analyze the concepts and ideas. In this sense, language is a necessary tool to think intellectually.

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However, not all forms of thought require language to be utilized from a fundamental level. One example of this is logic, or abstract reason, which uses language only as a preparatory tool. The simplest form of logic is in the form of “if…then” statements, organized in a conditional clause and a clause following it dependant upon the conditional. Language is only used in this case in order to receive information necessary to establish a condition, but the process of logic from then on does not require language. It becomes an abstract analysis of information through systematic determination, a wordless phenomenon ...

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