Language+and+Thought

How much does language influence our thinking?
=__Linguistic Determinism and Alternatives__=

Read the excerpt below from an explanation of George Orwell's "Newspeak" invented for the novel 1984.
Excerpt from ** "The Principles of Newspeak" ** An appendix to 1984 written by : George Orwell in 1948

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of IngSoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought -- that is, a thought diverging from the principles of IngSoc -- should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meaning and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meaning whatever.

To give a single example - The word "free" still existed in Newspeak, but could only be used in such statements as "The dog is //free// from lice" or "This field is //free// from weeds." It could not be used in its old sense of "politically free" or "intellectually free," since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispenses with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to //diminish// the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum. [|To Continue]

===Orwell is illustrating a form of **Linguistic Determinism** which is the idea that our ability to think is is determined by and limited by our language. This is also referred to as the **Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis** which you read about after Lesson 1: Words, Language and Thinking. We have seen interesting evidence that this may be true to some extent in the Radiolab stories about Ildefonso and the deaf school in Nicaragua. Consider the following experiment noted in your van de Lagemaat text:===

The experiment attempted to test the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis by interviewing bilingual Japanese women living in the U.S.. The women spoke both languages with comparable regularity. A bilingual Japanese interviewer asked the same questions to the women in two separate interview sessions. In the first session, the only language spoken was Japanese. In the second, only English was spoken. At the two interviews, the women were asked to complete the same sentences:


 * "When my wishes conflict with my family's. . .**

...it is a time of great unhappiness" (Japanese)

...I do what I want." (English)


 * "Real friends should...**

...help each other." (Japanese)

...be very frank (honest)." (English)

reference: Peter Farb, World Play: What happens When People Talk (New York: Vintage books, 1993), p.184

=Discussion Questions= = = =**Below Steven Pinker suggests that our ability to think is //not determined// by our language, but that language is more our way of //communicating// the things that we know or already think.**=
 * Orwell notes that "a heretical thought...should literally unthinkable." What does he mean?
 * Considering his analysis of the word 'free,' do you think he is correct? Can people have a concept without the word?
 * Is language controlled by a totalitarian government relevant to those living under less controlled systems?
 * What possible factors could explain why the bilingual Japanese women above answer the same questions differently in different language?
 * Consider the difference between declarative knowledge (things like facts/i.e. Paris is the capital of France) and procedural knowledge ( I know how to ride a bike/perform heart surgery). Is the ability to learn procedural knowledge limited by our language?
 * Consider the study of Medicine. A trained physician has learned knowledge about biology and medicine in few years at medical school that took hundreds of years to accumulate. Could this be done without language in general and specialized language in particular?
 * Can you develop the language of a skill (procedural knowledge) without developing the skill?

media type="youtube" key="K5ljEBkCeMQ" height="315" width="420"

[|The Meaning of LIff] by Douglas Adams is a "dictionary of things that there aren't any words for yet"; all the words describe common feelings and objects for which there is no current English word. Examples are:
 * //Shoeburyness// noun (The vague uncomfortable feeling you get when sitting on a seat which is still warm from somebody else's bottom)
 * //Plymouth// verb (To relate an amusing story to someone without remembering that it was they who told it to you in the first place)
 * //Sconser// noun (A person who looks around when talking to you, to see if there is anyone more interesting about)

Since there are things that we are familiar with that there unnamed, does this imply that thinking can come before or without language?

=__**Homework Readings:**__=
 * 1) **Does Language Shape the Way You Think?** by Guy Deutscher
 * 2) **More on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis**[| Language and Thought Processes]

=Extensions= The information below is //**optional**// and is meant only to extend the knowledge you have gained from the primary resources listed above. You may add resources below that you would like to share.

media type="youtube" key="LjQM8PzCEY0" height="315" width="420"

[|HOW DOES OUR LANGUAGE SHAPE THE WAY WE THINK?]

**Language WOK Vocabulary:**

 * Ambiguity, Back translation, Body language, Classification, Communication, Connotation, Denotation, Emotive meaning, Euphemism, Grammar, Idiom, Irony, Linguistic determinism, Metaphor, Sapir-Worf hypothesis, Stereotype, Weasel words**