Language is different for each individual and the idea of language will affect this person’s outlook on life, his or her future tactics on situations and also the way in which he or she remembers. E.g. American Indians, Hopi, were said to view the world in a much different way to others. They treated words such as ‘lightning’ and ‘wave’ only as verbs, whereas in English we use them as both a verb and a noun. This causes a much more confined speech and they consequently produce different, individual views.
Another point that I would like to include is the idea that ‘language dictates thought’ and the notion that ‘concepts are untranslatable’. This seems to be false with the continental child psychologists, Jean Piaget, who believed that language is just an expression of thought: first children develop concepts about the world (schemas), and later on they learn to communicate those concepts.
However, there was also a Russian psychologist, known as Vygotsky who had a different opinion. He believed that ‘language and thought develop separately in infancy’. This meant that ‘children first learn to talk as a social activity and separately develop an understanding about the world.’ Therefore, thought and language will come together as children become more capable of using language.
On the other hand we can see that language doesn’t entirely determine thought because even if an individual has no understanding of the meaning of a word, for instance, it can still be explained to them without fully understanding its background or having a stable foundation. Such explanations would be helpful but are not necessary and so reflects the idea that the person who doesn’t know the word does not put much thought into it.
Another idea that proves that language is not responsible for completely determining thought is the reference to language. If we look at the French word ‘les magazines’ we can easily pick up the similarity that it shares to the English word ‘magazines’. The ability for the French to borrow this language stresses the fact that language is independent on determining thought completely.
Also in reference to the French language, I recently came back from a school exchange from France and while over there, I noticed something else about the language. It was simply that in this other language, they had many various words which were used to signify the one word that the English language used. For instance, the English word ‘so’ is just one word that has many different meanings but in the French language there is a word for each of these meanings. When we use ‘so’ like in the sentence “Let’s give you some soup, so you can get warm.”, the French use the word ‘ainsi’. For the meaning of ‘so’ as in ‘therefore’ the French use the word ‘donc’. Then, for the common meaning of ‘so’ as in ‘well then’, the French use the word ‘allors’. Finally, when we use ‘so’ in the sense of ‘and…’ the French have another word which is ‘bah’.
Therefore, we can see that when we normally say ‘so’ to people we use it in the context that requires the other person to figure out which meaning we are intending. In the English language we have to rely heavily on our tone of voice and expression to get across our anticipated meanings. However, in France there is never a problem in this context, as individual words are used. This proves that the different knowledge of words can be hindered by language if the language is more concise, such as what we have seen in the examples above of the English language.
Also while in France, I realized that I agreed with the quote by Charles Hackett that “languages differ not so much as to what CAN be said in them, but rather as to what it is relatively easy to say in them.” For example, instead of saying “Are we going to do anything tomorrow?”, I would ask, “Il faut que nous faisons quelque chose demain?”. This may be longer but is easier to say and translates as “Do we need to/is it necessary that we do something tomorrow?” However, the correct translation for the first phrase is “Allons-nous faire quelque chose demain?”
I would also like to consider ‘linguistic determinism’, which is the idea that language shapes thought. Therefore, ‘determinism’ is the belief that human will is not free. Ludwig Wittgenstein said, “What we cannot say, we must pass over in silence.” This basically means that the words we have determine the things that we can know. For example, say that we wanted to describe an experience to someone – if we were limited in our language it would not only limit our communication but also our knowledge of it depending on the extent of our vocabulary.
In reference to this, there was a question that had been brought forward to find out if the same idea was also true for emotions – “If we didn’t have a word for ‘love’, would we still express the emotion? How would we do it if we didn’t know what it meant to love someone? Would it be possible to conjure a way to tell someone you loved them?” When looking further into this I discovered that in this day and age, we are always inventing new words in order to describe new trends. When looking in the dictionary it says that ‘love’ is a very strong attraction/desire.
However, it also states that it means to “feel and show kindness and charity to somebody.” If this is the case, if there wasn’t a word for love would we express the same love that we indulged with our ‘partner’ to our ‘pet’? I think that if there was no word to distinguish between the differences of the two types of love, we would invent two different words to express them. I believe that even if the word for ‘love’ was non-existent, we would obviously still feel it. Take for example if the word ‘pain’ wasn’t invented; if somebody came up to you and slapped you across the face, would you not feel it simply because there wasn’t a word to express the emotion? Of course you would feel it, and this is the same prospect for love. The emotion would still be there as love is more than a feeling; it’s a state of mind.
In conclusion, to some extent, I believe that beliefs, thoughts and knowledge are helped by the language used to express them. I think that the way people think can be very beneficial when used during explanations. I also think that the beliefs which various cultures possess will most likely have an effect on their language. Otherwise, I do not believe that they are completely helped by language as you are not able to fully express your feelings through them. Take for example, the quote “The limits of my language means the limits of my world.” by Ludwig Wittgenstein. This shows that you can only think what you can express in your language. If you try to express your thoughts from your mother tongue into another language it can prove very difficult and this causes restrictions. I agree with this and feel as though you may even only be able to paraphrase your thoughts and you will therefore not be able to express the exact meaning that was originally intended.
