Language and thought

[toorsdenote]

I feel silly for not really pondering this question before, and for not having a ready answer to it, but: do we think in language?

A few days ago my friend who lives in Japan send me a video he'd taken, during part of which he can be heard talking to himself in Japanese. (He opens a door in a prospective apartment and says, "Ah, toire.") I was curious whether he was talking to himself in Japanese as a way to practice the language or because he actually thinks in Japanese. Did he open the door and think "toire," or did he think "bathroom" and then translate?

Or are those both wrong? Did he open the door and have a concept or thought or feeling of bathroomness which is only then translated into a word at all, such that the concept of "thinking in English" or "thinking in Japanese" is meaningless in the first place?

I feel certain that several readers of this blog will have learned or thought about this before. I am finding myself flummoxed by not being able to work out whether I think in English or not.

Certainly some words seem to be very closely tied to the experience that they convey. Sometimes Zoe briefly wakes up between sleep cycles and is angry at the prospect of waking up. (Join the club, kid.) When she was tiny, she used to just cry in those moments. Now she says "NO!" or sometimes "Uh-oh." (Once she woke up as I was moving her from the car seat to her stroller and, with her eyes still closed, she both said and signed "All done" -- clearly meaning "Cut it out, Mama.") It has been interesting to see that, even when she's not fully conscious, a word rather than a cry has become her instinctive expression of a strong feeling. But is that the same as thinking in language, or is language always layered on top of the feeling or thought itself?

Comments

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

This is one of those questions that has had many, many words written about it, with no real solid conclusions drawn. It's entirely possible that this is something that differs for different people, or even for the same people over time. I suspect it's "some of each" for most people.

[dachte.livejournal.com]

I think in language most of the time, usually in a fluid mix of the languages I know. This is mainly for self-narration; if I'm reasoning about something I'm more likely to be thinking in non-language means.

[(Anonymous)]

What kind of person would take a video of a toilet, anyway.

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

I have been known to dream in languages that I do NOT know (made up ones, regretfully). I think that this in itself is "proof" enough that thought is BOTH verbal AND symbolic.

I would bet that Zoe responded verbally because her brain is currently putting so much effort into processing and learning language, that the chain reaction that happened was something like "What, what's going on" ==> [ears ans nose indicate] "Mommy is moving me" ==> [verbal center] "What's our response for that?" ==> "Cut it out, Mama." ==> "All done."

[chrisamaphone]

are you familiar with the sapir-whorf hypothesis? reading about that might be a good place to start.

the most insightful things i've learned about this come from anecdotes: one being jill bolte taylor's story of having a stroke and losing her language centers, the other being some podcast i heard about a man who wasn't raised with language describing what it was like to finally acquire it (i can't remember enough about it to find a source, darn).

[gryphonwing.livejournal.com]

I remember wondering about this as a young child, when I became aware that there were other languages in the world. I couldn't figure it out at the time.

Now... I think there are non-verbal thoughts and verbal thoughts. My most conscious thoughts are also verbal - almost subvocalized. Thinking consciously about something I don't have a word for is harder. I think in English.

However, some of my thoughts are not verbalized. They exist, but I have to chase around for words if I want to make them verbal. This is where poetry happens.

Some of my earliest memories are pre-verbal, and they're very different in quality than later memories. Partly that's just about age, I think, but some of it is about remembering the thoughts I was having without words...

Fun to think about, certainly. :)