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Does language influence thought? Over the last century, there has been a lot of debate on this question. Current researchers, however, take it for granted that language and thought are related and that they interact with each other in complex ways. The question they ask now is what does this relationship imply?
19th century German Philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt claimed that language was directly connected to thinking. In the 1920s linguist Edward Sapir and later, his student Benjamin Lee Whorf theorised that thoughts are controlled or influenced by the language we speak. This thesis, also widely known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, is called linguistic determinism.
However, in 1994, psychologist Steven Pinker and other linguistic relativists countered the deterministic claims made by the Whorfians. The relativists believed that language and thought were not as intrinsically connected as previously thought.
We now take for granted that language shapes our perception of our world with researchers like Lera Borodotsky proving that the languages we speak in fact do shape our perception of the world around us. Current experiments and research have proved conclusively that peoples' relations with time, space, colour as well as the objects around them are certainly affected by language.
The structures, vocabularies and boundaries of the language(s) we know have indisputable influence on how we think. On the other hand, the structures, vocabularies and boundaries of the language(s) we know are also influenced by the histories, geographies, memories, values, attitudes--the realities--of a particular people.
Language is thus, both the begetter of our cultural thought-processes and our collective personalities and the result of our cultural thought-process and our collective personalities.
The author, Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee, is Managing Partner at Expressions@Work, a training, consulting and mentoring studio for the development of communication and soft skills
6 comments:
Name: Garima Patodia
Section: A
Roll no: 35
The telegraph quote discussed today in class was -
"The limits of my language are the limits of my world"
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher of the 19th century.
He worked mainly in logic, the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language.
Another one of his famous quotes is - "Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it"
--
Ludwig Wittgenstein is one of the most influencial philosophers of the 20th century. His work culminated in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, the only philosophy book that he published during his lifetime. His works also include Philosophical Investigation which helped to inspire "ordinary language philosophy".
Garima wins the prize for the first entry. Medha wins the prize for the best entry on Wittgenstein. Special mention is also due to Gautam and Anavita. Good job, y'all!
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