"Men imagine that their minds have the command of language, but it often happens that language rules over minds." Francis Bacon. Discuss.

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Nisha Kanabar                5/12/05

“Men imagine that their minds have the command of language, but it often happens that language rules over minds.” Francis Bacon. Discuss the extent to which language directs or even controls the way we think. Refer to at least one of the theories about the link between language and thought, and consider them issues raised by our discussion of translation and different languages.”

What do you read, my lord?” Polonius asked. And with all the method that was in his madness Hamlet scornfully replied, “Words, words, words.” 

Though this was in the beginning of the seventeenth century, till today realists like the eponymous Shakespearean character, Hamlet, continue to speak of words in the same condescending stress. Even though its concept is often dismissed as a simple matter, the fact is that the intricacies concerning the magic of words and how they affect us are something that linguists have been trying to decipher for decades. Interestingly, human behaviour and personality are primarily formed by the nature of words, otherwise known as language. Ever since the outmost antiquity, every sort of the human community uses some form of language, same or different. Whether we are aware of it or not, the art of language plays a major role in our daily survival and existence. Aldous Huxley writes in an article called ‘Words and Their Meanings’ (1940) that “Without language, behaviour is nonhuman”. Interestingly enough, this is true. Without language, how would man have been able to develop skill, knowledge and wisdom from others, including those of past generations? Look at the evidence: Gorillas, for example. There may be some true intellectual geniuses among gorillas, but because they have no conceptual form of language, their thoughts and attainment cannot be traced. Thus, we tend to shelve them as simian beasts of a lesser intelligence.

A man named Ludwig Wittgenstein once said “If we spoke a different language, we’d perceive a different world”. Through this arises many questions; are our thoughts directly related to particular words and symbols called language? Can language affect or even control the way we think? Maybe even what we know? The fact is yes – language has power beyond what most of us imagine. The question is now, to what extent?

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In the most basic definition, language could be described as a means of communication by labelling thoughts with words. The concept of thoughts, however, is less easy to define. We all know what thoughts are – we process them everyday. Then why is giving this common practice a meaning is so difficult? So I will therefore take a definition of thought invented by Oxford professor Max Muller, who claims that the essence of thought “consists in a bringing together of mental images and ideas with deductions therefrom, and with a corresponding power of detaching them from one another. Hopefully through ...

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