Some More Thoughts

Honestly, I love this question. "Do the words we utter arise as a result of our thoughts, or are thoughts determined by the linguistic systems we happen to have been taught?"

I feel that the first part of this question is relatively straightforward, but the second part really captivates me. Although Mits may have believed that words merely represent ideas, Hayakawa says that ideas are merely the "vocalizations of cerebral itches," and indeed, how can we express an idea without using words? Ideas are composed of words, and thus are limited by what words and connotations we know. If we only know a certain set of words due to the specific linguistic system that we have been taught, does that constrain us?

I believe that Emily's example of Newspeak in her comment on the first post fits this idea perfectly. Orwell included an Appendix of Newspeak with his book, and while critics originally disparaged it as dry and uninteresting, today its brilliance shows. The purpose of Newspeak was to systematically eliminate words and thus lessen the capacity for thought. As Orwell wrote, the goal of Newspeak was to have heretical thoughts "literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words." How can one have any concept of what "freedom" and "liberty" are if those words did not even exist? It is almost impossible to express our feelings and ideas without using the appropriate words and meanings.

Here's a sentence from Orwell's Appendix that underlines this:
"Countless other words such as honor, justice, morality, internationalism, democracy, science, and religion had simply ceased to exist...All words grouping themselves round the concepts of liberty and equality, for instance were contained in the single word crimethink."

Newspeak literally eliminated ideas from the imagination by taking away the words that we would use to express them, and forcibly changed language to something "independent of consciousness." I doubt that we students could even be discussing our ideas on this blog if we had been indoctrinated in Newspeak instead of English.

Could you form any thought without using words? After all, Hayakawa considers thinking to be at least nine-tenths talking to ourselves in words (hopefully silently). If we must use words to express our ideas and cannot think of an idea without the appropriate word, it follows that the linguistic system that we have been taught has a direct impact upon our minds.

A real-life language example is the rare Andamanese language, which only has two number words: "One" and "more than one." If you had grown up speaking and thinking in that language, could you decipher and enunciate the difference between a bicycle and a tricycle, or a man with two eyes and one with four?

In my personal life, many times I have had to ask my parents to translate some Chinese words into English, as I only have a rudimentary understanding of the former. Countless times I have been told that "there isn't really a word for it in English," leaving me mentally behind and frustrated when my parents talk about or describe something that apparently I am unable to even "think" of.

But I do agree with Emily that a lack of words in a particular language is not completely an insurmountable barrier to thought, although I believe that it is very close to one. Take a look at "Jabberwocky", and although you (or anyone else) might not know what "brillig" and "slithy toves" mean, we still are able to draw our own feelings from the poem. But once again, there are limits to that method of communication, and it would be almost impossible for us to converse with each other if we had to always make up words. Perhaps the Andamanese might be able to create new number words, but it'd be very difficult for a 1984 Orwellian drone to express the idea of freedom to others without knowing any of the needed words.

Any thoughts?

(Eric Wei)