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Language "Language is human reason, which has its internal logic of which man knows nothing. " Claude Levi-Strauss, 1908 So much of our everyday lives, our interactions with other people, our learning, involves language, that it is almost impossible to discuss any aspect of thinking without taking its role into account. But non-linguistic "thinking" is possible, for example, spatial "thinking", musical "thinking", emotion, and imagination. Yet although these certainly enrich our persona, unlike language they do not constitute our core being. When I think, I think in language; it seems impossible to envisage contemplation without language. Our consciousness, our sense of self, seems inextricable from linguistic thought. This essay will evaluate the truth of this claim, by examining how the relationship between thought and language varies ontogenetically and phylogenetic ally.
It will then examine what remains of a human mind when either language or thought is destroyed. The views of developmental psychologists fall into three main categories. Bruner (1966) sees thought as being dependent on, or caused by, language; without language human thought would be limited to what could be learned through actions or images. A second view, as represented by Piaget (1950), takes the opposite position, namely that language is dependent on, and reflects, the level of cognitive development; language is a tool to be used in the course of operational thinking. A third view regards thought and language as originally quite separate activities which come together and interact at a certain point of development (about two years old) and is associated with Vygotsky (1962).
Until the end of infancy, it is possible to encounter precursors of language that seem unrelated to intellectual operations (such as babbling) and elements of thought that occur without any language (such as actions, perceptions or images). However, the intermingling of language and thought provides the child with a uniquely human form of behavior in which language becomes intellectual and thinking becomes verbal. How then does one decide who is correct? It follows from the above that Bruner believes that cognitive development can be significantly speeded up by language training whereas for Piaget it would make no difference. Sonstroem (1966) and Bruner (1966) independently found that encouraging five and six year-olds to use their language skills enabled them to give a correct conservation response, contrary to what Piaget would predict. However, the four year-olds did not benefit, so to this extent Piaget's view that the mental structures must have already developed before training can help seems to have been supported.
Sinclair-de-Zwart (1967 / 1969) also found that language training in young children failed to influence problem solving. Interestingly, Piaget himself and other Piagetian researchers (eg. In helder and Karmiloff-Smith, 1978) believe that linguistic interaction with other children may help the child to advance intellectually, even though verbal training does not. They consider that childrens attempts to convince their peers of their own points of view, and the ensuing disputes and conflicts generated by being made aware of contradictions, are all necessary steps in cognitive growth. Although we have considered apparently different theories about the relationship between language and thought, there are points of overlap between them.
If we superimpose them on top of each other we may have a more comprehensive and accurate picture of the nature of that relationship than any on its own can provide. My view is that a certain sophistication of cognition is required before the child can think abstractly. Language is a system of symbolic representation, perfected over many previous generations, that allows the child to "abstract" the world. It provides the symbols for the child"s equations concerning the world, permitting the child a far greater freedom of thought and leading to further cognitive development "Language may have created man, rather than man language. " Jaques Money, 1910 - 1977. We shall now consider the evolutionary evidence - do animals with more complex language possess more sophisticated thought processes? Brown (1973) states that true language is productive since speakers can recombine forms to make new utterances, it has semanticist as it can represent ideas, events and objects symbolically, and it offers displacement, messages need not be tied to the immediate context.
In contrast the communication systems of birds, bees and lower animals are all tied to the stimulus situation, limited to the here-and-now and to a restricted set of messages. Our closest biological relative, the chimpanzee, has been shown to possess cognitive abilities far surpassing any other animal save man. Infant chimpanzees display visual pursuit, an understanding of object permanence, the use of means to achieve desired ends, the ability to construct object relations in space and the use of operational causality. Redshaw (1978) found that not only did the chimps develop these abilities in the same sequence as human babies do, but that they were in general a few weeks more advanced! It was thus hypothesized that training chimps in the use of language would allow them to keep pace with the humans cognitive abilities beyond infancy.
Early attempts to raise chimpanzees as children, in the hope that they would acquire language spontaneously (eg. Kellogg, 1933; Hayes, 1951) failed because researchers were unaware that chimpanzees do not have the specialized articulatory and physiological abilities that make spoken language possible. Subsequent research has utilized sign language (Gardener, 1969) or specialized typewriters (Rumbaugh, Gill and Glaserfeld, 1973). Using this system, some higher primates have been taught almost 400 signs. Regarding Browns criteria of language, as far as semanticist is concerned, the non-human primates certainly seem to use symbols meaningfully, and there is evidence of displacement too; for example, when a chimp signs "You me go there in" she is referring to a place she is not in at the moment. There is also evidence of productivity eg.
one gorilla called a cigarette lighter a "bottle match", a zebra a "white tiger", and a mask an "eye hat." However, Terrace (1980) analyzed films of the ape language projects and concluded that very little of what the chimp signed actually originated with the chimp. The chimps signed what had just been signed to them, responding to subtle cues from their trainers. In conclusion, of all the discontinuities between man and animals, including abstraction, morality, culture and technology, and the division of labor, the evergreen candidate for the fundamental discontinuity, which might qualify all others, is language. The most unrelenting efforts to induce our closest living relatives to reveal hidden linguistic potential have left the discontinuity of speech bloodied, but unbowed. It is therefore still reasonable to say that animals do not think as we do, when we think in words, but tacit mental organization is evident not only in ourselves but in many other species. Our organ of thought may be superior, and we may play it better, but it is surely vain to believe that other possessors of similar instruments leave them quite untouched.
Surely we shouldnt expect so much from the chimps second language - after all, how far have we progressed in learning theirs? How can I grasp what I think, till I know what I say?" Graham Wallas, 1858 - 1932. We shall now turn to neuropsychology to examine what occurs when either language or thought is damaged. The question to be considered is whether an impairment of linguistic function decreases the sophistication of individuals thought processes. Unfortunately the evidence is very mixed. A patient may show multiple and severe language problems whereas perception, orientation, thinking, reasoning, memory, and so on remain intact (though needing to be tapped non-verbally).
But these claims are not best evaluated by comparing groups of aphasic patients with groups of normals. For example, many group studies have found that aphasics perform poorer on tests of non-verbal intelligence than normal patients (eg. Bay, 1962; Kertesz and McCabe, 1975) whereas other studies have found no difference and no correlation between the severity of language impairment and reduced non-verbal intellect (eg. Basso, De Renzi, Faglioni, Scotti, & Spinner, 1973; Cooking, 1979). Still other studies have found aphasics to have very high non-verbal intelligence (eg. Van Harskamp, 1974; Woman and Laser, 1974; Zangwill, 1964).
The problem is that language is not a single, unified human faculty; rather speech production, speech comprehension, writing and reading are capabilities which arise out of the coordinated activity of many language-sustaining cognitive processes or "modules." If each module is capable of being impaired independently of the others, then it becomes clear that the number of different language disorders could be very large. On top of this, symptoms could arise due to disconnection of modules, modules could be impaired in more than one way, and certain symptoms may be due to a particular combination of modules being damaged. Thus the grouping of aphasics together for assessment is probably not very useful and has thus contributed to the mixture of results above. As discussed earlier there are many types of non-linguistic thought, and not surprisingly these can be lost without affecting language. Morrow, Ratcliff and Johnston (1985) described patients with impaired spatial thought, Henschen (1926) described patients with asia, and manias and depressions characterize disturbed emotions, yet in none of these cases is language disrupted.
From neuropsychology it is probably safe to conclude that up to a point language and thought can be impaired separately. However, at the point where words and representations interface, ie. at the level of semantics and beyond, damage to one will affect the other. Only idealists can speak of thinking without language. " Josef Vissarionovich Stalin, 1879 - 1953 To summarize I think that language and thought are mutually dependent on one another.
From an ontogenetic al viewpoint a certain sophistication of thought is necessary before language can be acquired, but once it is obtained it leads to a far greater complexity of thinking. The phylogenetic evidence supports this view. I would postulate that chimps have advanced cognitively as far as is possible without a satisfactory system of symbolic representation. Teaching chimps our language has failed, not because of a lack of intelligence on their part, but a lack of understanding on ours. The gulf between English and French, immeasurable for many of us, is tiny compared to the gulf between chimp and human. Perhaps we would be better to try understanding chimp language, before teaching them ours.
Finally the neuropsychological evidence gives us some idea of the language-thought relationship in adults. Some language is possible without thought (witness the schizophrenic) but thought is also possible with impaired overt language (the aphasic). Whether the latter also implies impaired covert speech is uncertain, but I would doubt this is the case. For adults it is many years since thought and language merged and I suspect one cannot be severely disrupted without affecting the other. I will leave it to Piaget to conclude this essay, "language and thought are links in a genetic circle... in the last analysis both depend on intelligence itself, which antedates language and is independent of it. " BIBLIOGRAPHY Bruner, J.
S. (1975) From communication to language - a psychological perspective. Cognition, 3, pps. 225 - 287. Linden, E. (1976) Apes, Men and Language. Second Edition. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Piaget, J. (1959) The Language and Thought of the Child.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Rochester, S. and Martin, J. R. (1979) Crazy Talk: a Study of the Discourse of Schizophrenic Speakers. New York: Plenum. Vygotsky, L.
S. (1962) Thought and Language. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press. Zangwill, O. (1964) Intelligence in aphasia. In A. V. S.
de Rock and N. O"Connor, eds. , Disorders of Language. London: Chruchill.
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