Saturday, February 25, 2006
Which comes first?
Well, it is an old question now: which is prior to the other: language or thought. That is, you think without any need to have a word or a group of words to do it, or you are unable to think if you don't know how to articulate it with language? It is a tricky question and has tantalized lots of scholars to find a convincing answer for it. But what I am personally interested in is the feeling of it. Have you ever been conscious about it? How do you feel about it? Some of you may be bilingual and may have a psychological bond with one of the languages you are fluent in. You might have been asked to say in what language you think. Or in what language you dream. Then does it mean that 'language' comes frist? Or even if you just talk one language, have you ever been thinking outside the boundaries and possibilities of that language? Is it possible to do so?
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23 comments:
Tough question indeed! Yet in my openion, thought & feelings are way deeper than language & although we do think in language, sometimes we really don't. We know what we feel without words spinning in our head.
Yet this still proves to be a tough one! Like Morgh & Tokhme Morgh!
dr o2--I know, this is kind of another chicken or egg question! What you say about feeling is true, yet one wonders how to figure out what brain does. while producing signals of pain or joy, does brain also create some langauge equivalent signal for those feelings? Do we remember those feelings by words or by feeling?
Hi Behrooz. This is a very interesting question... I don't think the brain "produces" language signals the same way as it produces pain and joy signals. Laguage is simply a way of expressing feelings and thoughts. Have you ever heard someone that is talking in their sleep? Sometimes it is absolutely clear and you can understand every bit of what they say. But the next minute they're talking gibbrish :-)
BTW, when I'm dreaming, it's like being part of a movie. But I'm not sure what language I speak... and I don't think I ever have had a co-actor speaking a language I don't understand. Really interesting question, I'll try to think about it before going to sleep tonight.
Take care.
hi nyx and welcome; you are right this sleep-talking adds still further complexity to the problem. Especially the gebberish talk may be kind of evidence against the prorioty of language over thought. Or can we say as they are meaningless then it strengthen the position of the opposing perspective!!!
--tell me about your thinking.
My real blog has moved to here
http://pinklady.typepad.com/
There is an explaination on my new blog.Sorry i couldnt find your email to let you know what happened.
Interesting question.English isn't my first language but it is the one i use most.Sometimes though i find it difficult to think of the correct word to use for something.I know what i want to say but it doesnt always come across right.
Pink--I know how it feels not to find a word you need.
BTW, I could not open your address, it asks me for user name and password.
Hi Denny; you know loads of langugaes; as far as I saw on your blog you can even do some Chinese! But which langauge do you think with?
well we experience them through neurotransmiters which are the real language behind it all but then agn do we interpret them through language!!??? AHHHHHHHH!!! it is a dead-end maze ;-)
Denny-- that makes two of us, with this small difference that that I don't know half of the langauges you do!
dr o2--you said it;
That’s very interesting. I think if I had to choose one I would say thought came first. It’s hard to imagine how one can think without words but it is possible. Well babies and very young kids manage it ;-)
You know Behrooz, sometimes we have a feeling but we can't find words to discribe it. That is just to say that may be thoughts come first?
I don't know?
Soumiaz
Shirin--the question is that same 'how' is it possible? and btw how do you know babies think? It is another interesting question, isn't it: do we begin thinking right from our first cry? If yes, how, if not when do we start it?
Soumiaz--you are right about feelings but then what about thoughts? I know it is a really tough question.
well Behrooz,
I was just talking to my sister about my niece and how she does crazy while she still can't put a whole sentence together.
She is only 2 years old and yet she would, for instance, get me my shoes if she wants to go out...
Did i answer it this time? Let me know so i give it another try ;)
Soumiaz--a very nice example indeed. Yet it may raise other questions like: is grammar an essetial part of language? For example if a baby says 'out' he means: 'I want you to take me out'. Should langauge be necessarily vocally produced to be called language? Consider the case of deaf or dumb people without producing it vocally. And thank you so much for taking the question under such serious consideration.
Hmm, ok needs a little thinking. I will get back you on that one!
Behrooz,
I felt that the matter was of a high importance to you, so I asked a friend of mine who is also a doctor.
She said that Thoughts are more important and can exist without the language but that the opposite was not true.
Thoughts can exist without the language while the second can't without the first.
So for example a deaf person can develop the same perception of the outside world of someone who can hear; it is just going to take her more time.
We perceive things before we give them names, we think about the form before we give it a name.
I hope this help, but let me know!
Soumiaz--I really appreciate your taking the question to a friend and it is more than interesting to see that she also had picked up on the issue of the deaf. The tricky thing, however, as you may have noticed is that the deaf also use a language: sign language. Also the idea that we percieve things before we give them names is open to question: 1. what if namig happens in the mind in the form of repeated images? 2. How do we know that that perception is not decoded by some linguistic processing of the mind?
long time no Post Behrooz!?? Awaiting the next topic :-)
I don’t know exactly when the thinking starts but I know that for example a few months old babies get a big kick out of pictures of geometric forms that are in black and white but they either don’t see colours or they don’t mean anything to them. So maybe they think in black and white forms! Who knows though? Actually I’m sure there are scientists who know a lot about this sort of thing (like that professor Robert Winston) but I think for me this is one of those philosophical questions that is more interesting when it’s left unanswered, like ‘Elm bartarast ya servat?’ :-) or ‘What came first? The chiken or the egg?
Shirin--Ok then, you rest assured that we cannot easily disturb your mind by giving you an answer. Yet I had never put Elem behtar ast ya servat and Egg and chicken question together; it sounds cool.
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