Journal of Language and Linguistics Volume 3 Number 1 2004 ISSN 1475 - 8989

Discussion Article

1. Introduction

Understanding the nature of language and thought is just about as important as any understanding can be. Both are at the basis of our lives. They are two essential characteristics that identify us as human beings: Language is species-specific, and thought makes us stand out against the rest of the animal world as rational creatures. Moreover, in general terms, both are extremely necessary. It is almost ridiculous to think of being part of a society without thought and language. We need thought to come up with new ideas and evolve, and language to express and explain our thoughts. No civilization has ever been built on the basis of an irrational, non-speaking community. Thought and language are equally significant in the sense that they are the fundamental tools used by the members of a group to interact. For communication purposes, one is used as a consequence of the other, but this does not mean that one is better than the other.

So, if you were the Academy and language and thought were the nominees, which one would be awarded the Oscar for the most important performance in our lives? Difficult, uh? It is impossible to think of one being more significant than the other. How are we supposed to determine that if they are interdependent? Or they are not? Human thought is language, isn't it? If so, are we intellectual prisoners limited to thinking what language can describe and allows us to think? Or is language a human invention, a purely cultural phenomenon? In this paper, I will try to put an end to the never-ending and unnatural struggle between language and thought, through the analysis of some concepts taken from Steven Pinker's 'The Language Instinct' (1994).

2. The Unattainable Answer

First of all, before trying to find THE answer, it is necessary to take a look at the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (SWH). Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf were two American anthropologists and linguists who, in the first half of the 20th century, developed the theories of linguistic determinism, stating that the limits of language restrict the scope of thought, and linguistic relativity, stating that each language embodies a worldview so that speakers of different languages think about the world in different ways. These principles have been pretty much criticized (and Pinker is one of those critics), but I think the right answer is still on the way to be proven. So, here is the challenge. Let's find a way through it by considering some of Pinker's reflections on the relation between language and thought.

Like Pinker, I will take into account three cases on which the SWH was based. The first one is associated with colors and the way humans sense them. After explaining an experiment carried out in New Guinea, Pinker comes to a conclusion: "The way we see colors determines how we learn words for them, not vice versa" (p. 63). This is true since all normal humans share similar perceptions of color despite differences in the color terminology from one language to another. The physiology of our eyes is basically the same. People all over the world can see subtle gradations of color and can comprehend other ways of dividing up the spectrum of light. But this does not mean that we perceive different colors. Unless a group of people get acquainted with a certain tone of blue, they will not have a word for it until their context is changed and they come across that shade. Therefore, it is not thought but their environment what limits their vocabulary.

In translation, the hole due to cultural differences is called "linguistic gap" and it can be clearly seen, for example, when translating regionalisms. There are many concepts that belong intrinsically to a certain region, culture. For instance, in the United States, women are used to organizing "baby showers" where the family and closest friends of the soon-to-be mother gather to honor the coming of a baby, present gifts to the expecting mother that are usually necessities that she will need in order to take care of the new baby, and share wonderful and funny memories. In Argentina, there is no such a party, which implies a problem in the face of its translation because it is difficult to convey its social meaning in the target text. This is one of the reasons that make translations so challenging and, in turn, so appealing. Fortunately, no matter how restricted the vocabulary may be, thought is capable of finding other ways of expressing infinitely many meanings through a finite lexicon of words, and, in a sense, regionalisms can be solved by paraphrasing their concepts.

Now, back to Pinker, this idea of the cultural gap would also apply to the example of the different ways of naming snow in Eskimo, if Pinker did not undermine it by retelling how that number was exaggerated as the theory passed from Boas to the newspaper columns of Amazing Facts. It would be a matter of circumstance, too. Those terms would be rarely used by people who lived in tropical or subtropical regions and who hardly ever encountered frozen water in any form other than ice cubes. Therefore, as the environment changes, language responds by creating new terminology to describe it. In addition, it is worth recalling that, as another one of its main characteristics, language is arbitrary. That is, concepts are passively inherent in our thought, whether we speak Spanish, French, English, or Russian; it is their label what changes across languages due to several factors, such as culture. Ideas sleep at the back of our minds and only wake up when people are faced with situations that teach them of the existence of an object, a place, an animal, an activity, etc. Indeed, this notion is also applicable to the third and last example studied by Whorf and given by Pinker - the Hopi concept of time and how these people managed to refer to time using sophisticated methods of dating.

Before examining the three cases introduced by the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, Pinker holds that the consequent implication is heavy since "The foundational categories of reality are not "in" the world but are imposed by one's culture" (p. 57). After having analyzed them, I certainly agree with him on this. However, I would replace the word "imposed" by the word "influenced" because we are not prisoners of our culture. While it is true that we are not asked about where to be born, later in our lives we become free to choose, and, either by traveling or, at least, by reading, we are given the possibility to overcome that barrier and, to a certain extent, get acquainted with other cultures, other concepts, and, therefore, other words. After all, we are not chained to the Obelisco, the Eiffel Tower, or the Taj Mahal...

Later on, once he enlarges on Turing's representational theory of mind to show how thought might work, Pinker refers to the process of thinking as a kind of language, insisting that it is not any of the "surface" languages that we actually speak, but a quasi-language following basic principles of language structure. "But to get these languages of thought to subserve reasoning properly, they would have to look much more like each other than either one does to its spoken counterpart, and it is likely that they are the same: a universal mentalese" (p. 82). This statement reminds me of Noam Chomsky, the father of the transformational generative grammar, who talked about an innate language structure for the first time in the history of Linguistics. I believe that, unlike vocabulary, the foundational grammatical categories of mentalese can not be externally imposed because they are already part of Chomsky's "Universal Grammar" underlying thought. He defines it as "the system of principles, conditions, and rules that are elements or properties of all human languages… the essence of all human languages". Thought is controlled by concepts such as negation, question, justification, conclusion, etc. expressed in terms of grammatical patterns. As Chomsky (1975) said, "The deep structure that expresses the meaning is common to all languages, so it is claimed, being a simple reflection of the forms of thoughts". From this, I can conclude that thought makes use of mentalese in order to communicate its ideas in the form of language, and that this mentalese works based on the universal grammar. To describe it better, I would compare it to a manufacturing plant, where the productive process consists of thought as the raw material, mentalese as the machinery, universal grammar as the electric power, and language as the output. Additionally, humans would be placed at the end of this chain as the consumers of the linguistic product, playing a role of either speakers or listeners.

A question that I found really interesting when I read the book is: "And if thoughts depended on words, (…) How could translation from one language to another be possible?" (p. 58). I believe that, in order to answer, first it is necessary to clarify the general misconception that language shapes thought, or vice versa. As concluded above, they are not enemies but perfectly compatible allies that interact in the natural process of speaking in such a cooperative and coordinated way that enables us to communicate and be part of a group, without even being aware of it. Once this concept of "brotherhood" is clear, then the analysis can be restricted to the area of translation. Following the hypothesis raised by Pinker, I think again the right answer would be the universal grammar present in mentalese. As concepts in our minds are also universal, translating is possible because humans, when born, have a set of rules already built into them that allows them to learn any language and exchange the tags of those ideas. It is this comprehensive condition of thought what enables us to assimilate any conception of reality in any language, thus making it possible to reproduce it either in Chinese, German, or Italian. Later in the book, Pinker explains this: "There seems to be a common plan of syntactic, morphological, and phonological rules and principles, with a small set of varying parameters, like a checklist of options. Once set, a parameter con have far-reaching changes on the superficial appearance of the language" (p. 239). That "superficial appearance" refers to the different languages spoken in the world and the different words with which each of them names, for example, a cat. Then, translation is possible not as a result of the predominance of thought over language, or vice versa, but as a consequence of the power of mentalese in our minds. Since our birth, we are ready to "think" universally, allowing us to attach words from different languages to a same element and exchange them as if they were a kind of synonym, or an "equivalence", as it is properly called.

3. And the Oscar goes to...

From all my previous considerations, and following the introduction to this paper, it can be inferred that thought is better than language because, no matter where we are, our mind always allows us to perceive reality and turn it into words. (Indeed, in some special cases, the mind determines what is real and what is not, but here I am not referring to mentally ill people.) This is how the eternal conflict between language and thought is supposed to end. However, I refuse to put an end to something that, I believe, has never begun. I prefer to call this a comparison and describe it as unnatural. Nature decided to endow us with thought AND language. So, I can not understand why we are supposed to find out which one is the best. Pinker insists: "The idea that thought is the same thing as language is an example of what can be called a conventional absurdity" (p. 57). They are not "the same thing" because their functions in the linguistic process are quite different, but they are at the same level: they are equally important and useful although they can not be exchangeable.

In conclusion, I think there will be no answer if language and thought are analyzed in isolation. Both are the ends of a linguistic process that can not be divided because it loses its sense of unity. Communication is the primary objective; thought and language, together, the only key to succeed. "Knowing a language, then, is knowing how to translate mentalese into strings of words and vice versa" (p. 82). The only acceptable connections are that language is a translating device for the imperfect expression of thought and that thinking is necessary for producing language. Mentalese is the language spoken by thought, and the act of translating thoughts into words through mentalese is the refining of understanding.

Then, why insisting on putting thought face to face with language? Can't linguists see that it is impossible to talk about one without mentioning the other? They are a team; they need each other just to be. And we need them together. There would be no human species if we lacked either language or thought. Both are two of the most significant characteristics by definition: A group of naturally rational creatures easily identified through its language. Therefore, if I were the Academy, I would decide that the Oscar goes to neither language nor thought, but to mentalese, the language of thought.

About the Author

Email: laporteale@infovia.com.ar

References

Chomsky, N. 1975. Reflections on Language. New York: Pantheon Books.
Pinker, S. 1994. The Language Instinct. England: Penguin Group.