Introduction

The relationship between language and thought has been a subject of considerable interest over
the years. Arguments on the subject presented started as early as period 19th Century Ancient
Greek. The 1940s saw the rise and popularity of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that suggested that
speakers of different languages think differently. Later on scientists raised criticism on the theory
with most adopting the view that language and theory are universal. Particular concern has been
directed in establishing whether there is a difference in how two people who speak differently
also think differently. Recent research such as Leva (2011) however, suggests that the language
people use may affect the way they think such that language conditions an individuals
perception of issues and the actions. This empirical evidence presented suggests that language
shapes thinking putting to task the previously held theories on language universalism. The debate
on the issue however continues. An understanding of this relationship has considerable
implications for politics, education, marketing and other areas that involve human interaction.
This paper aims to evaluate this relationship between language and thought. To achieve this, the
paper aims to evaluate five major aspects; whether language dictates thinking, whether language
organize thinking, whether people speaking different languages also think differently, whether
multilingual individuals have broader thinking as compared to monolinguals and evaluating
whether thought can exist without language. The paper is organized in two major sections; an
evaluation of the various existing theories and concepts and subsequent section that specifically
addresses the above specified questions of research.
Conclusion

The relationship between language and thought has been a subject of debate for many years. The
Ancient Greeks perspectives, the 1940s Whorfs theory that argued that language precedes
thought, the subsequent cognitive approaches that considered thought to coexist with language
all represent the various arguments that have been held on issue. The empirical evidence
presented suggests that language shapes thinking putting to task the previously held theories on
language universalism. Through a review of literature, the conclusion is that language and
thought have interactive relationship in that language dictates thought whereas thought also
influences language. Further conclusions include; language organizes thought, people with
different cultures and languages think differently, multilingual individuals have broader thinking
as compared to monolinguals, and that thought can exist without language. Present research in
this are however is not exhaustive and thus the need for further research especially one that
utilizes the new technologies in brain neurology.
Adults tend to take language for granted - until they have to learn a new one. Then they realize
how difficult it is to get the pronunciation right, to acquire the meaning of thousands of new
words, and to learn how those words are put together to form sentences. Children, however, have
mastered language before they can tie their shoes. In this engaging and accessible book, William
O'Grady explains how this happens, discussing how children learn to produce and distinguish
among sounds, their acquisition of words and meanings, and their mastery of the rules for

building sentences. How Children Learn Language provides readers with a highly readable
overview not only of the language acquisition process itself, but also of the ingenious
experiments and techniques that researchers use to investigate his mysterious phenomenon. It
will be of great interest to anyone - parent or student - wishing to find out how children acquire
language.

Written in an accessible style and assumes no knowledge of linguistics, so accessible to

the general reader and to parents with young children

Deals comprehensively with all the major phenomena involved in language development:
sounds, words, meanings and structure

Draws on the latest research in the field, giving readers an appreciation not just of 'what'
we know about language acquisition, but 'how' we know it

Psycholinguistics and Child Language Acquisition

Psycholinguistics merges the fields of psychology and linguistics to study how people process
language and how language use is related to underlying mental processes. Studies of childrens
language acquisition and of second-language acquisition are psycholinguistic in nature.
Psycholinguists work to develop models for how language is processed and understood, using
evidence from studies of what happens when these processes go awry.
They also study language disorders such as aphasia - impairment of the ability to use or
comprehend words and dyslexia - impairment of the ability to make out written language. It is
the study of interrelationship of psychological and linguistic behaviour. Its most important area
of investigation has been language acquisition. It has raised and has partly answered questions
such as how do children acquire their mother tongue? How do they grow up linguistically and
learn to handle the registral and stylistic varieties of their mother tongue effectively? How much
of the linguistic system that they ultimately command, are they born with and how much do they
discover on the basis of their exposure to that system? John D. Carroll states that this branch
uses:

Some aspects of psychology and some aspects of linguistics. It is confined to the

study of how people use a language system and how they learnt it

By language acquisition is meant the process whereby children achieve a fluent control of their
native tongue. By 1950, people thought that children imitated their elders and got language but
now various theories have been presented. Some argue that it is the environmental impact and
product of our experience and others discuss the innateness of language or Empiricist

(Behaviorists) and Rationalists (Mentalists). The theoretical questions have focused on the issue
of how we can account for the phenomenon of language development in children at all. Normal
children have mastered most of the structures of their language by the age of five or six. The
earlier behaviorist assumptions were that it was possible to explain language development
largely in terms of imitation and reinforcement. Psycholinguistics therefore argue that imitation
is not enough; it is not merely by mechanical repetition that children acquire language. They
also acquire it by natural exposure. Both nature and nurture influence the acquisition of
language in children. Both schools of thought have said significant things but neither is perfect.
Language Acquisition is a process of analogy and application, nature and nurture. Experience
and innateness. Imitation is there but the child forms his own grammar of rules. Children learn
first not items but systems. In other words, what is being claimed is that the childs brain
contains certain innate characteristics which pre-structure it in the direction of language
learning. To enable these innate features to develop into adult competence, the child must be
exposed to human language, i.e., it must be stimulated in proper to respond but the basis. David
Crystal asserts:

On which it develops its linguistic abilities is not describable in

behaviourist terms

Psycholinguistics has researched and exposed that there is a critical period in first language
acquisition. If the child, in the first thirteen years, is not exposed to language, he loses his critical
period and then he can never master a language; even his native tongue. Genie and Chelsea who
lost their critical period, are the examples in this proof. If he is exposed to language in his
childhood, he goes certain stages to learn his mother tongue. The development of a childs
language starts from babbling; merely saying /b/, /p/ and /m/ etc. and then he goes on to word
level. His One-Word Stage is between the ages of 12 months, children are able to produce one
word utterances. And the child can use one word to mean the whole thing as dada to mean I see
daddy or daddy is coming etc. or Juice to means give me juice etc. In Two-Word Stage: such as
baby chair meaning the baby is sitting in the chair or babys chair etc. Hit Doggie meaning I hit
the doggy etc. In Telegraphic Stage, children begin to produce longer and complex sentences
such are chair broken, Car make noise, I good boy, man ride bus today etc. Language
development from age 2 is rapid and fast. The telegraphic stage is a very important period which
is characterized by the emergence of powerful grammatical devices.

In short, Psycholinguistics deals with relationship between language and mind focusing mainly
on how language is learnt, stored and occasionally lost. Mind and language have two functions:
Acquisition and Performance and the two are linked. For empiricists, language learning is the
result of conditioned behavior while Chomsky maintains that every human being has an innate
capacity to learn his language. Language behavior is a very complex phenomenon. Language
behavior is subject to different social and psychological factors. There is strong evidence to

prove that language learning is a biologically controlled process. Psycholinguistics seeks to study
all these issues and more.
Language acquisition
Main article: Language acquisition

There are essentially two schools of thought as to how children acquire or learn language, and
there is still much debate as to which theory is the correct one. The first theory states that all
language must be learned by the child. The second view states that the abstract system of
language cannot be learned, but that humans possess an innate language faculty, or an access to
what has been called universal grammar. The view that language must be learned was especially
popular before 1960 and is well represented by the mentalistic theories of Jean Piaget and the
empiricist Rudolf Carnap. Likewise, the school of psychology known as behaviorism (see Verbal
Behavior (1957) by B.F. Skinner) puts forth the point of view that language is a behavior shaped
by conditioned response, hence it is learned.
The innatist perspective began with Noam Chomsky's highly critical review of Skinner's book in
1959.[5] This review helped to start what has been termed "the cognitive revolution" in
psychology. Chomsky posited humans possess a special, innate ability for language and that
complex syntactic features, such as recursion, are "hard-wired" in the brain. These abilities are
thought to be beyond the grasp of the most intelligent and social non-humans. According to
Chomsky, children acquiring a language have a vast search space to explore among all possible
human grammars, yet at the time there was no evidence that children receive sufficient input to
learn all the rules of their language (see poverty of the stimulus). Hence, there must be some
other innate mechanism that endows a language ability to humans. Such a language faculty is,
according to the innateness hypothesis, what defines human language and makes it different from
even the most sophisticated forms of animal communication.
The field of linguistics and psycholinguistics since then has been defined by reactions to
Chomsky, pro and con. The pro view still holds that the human ability to use language
(specifically the ability to use recursion) is qualitatively different from any sort of animal ability.
[6]
This ability may have resulted from a favorable mutation or from an adaptation of skills
evolved for other purposes. The view that language can be learned has had a recent resurgence
inspired by emergentism. This view challenges the "innate" view as scientifically unfalsifiable;
that is to say, it can't be tested. With the amount of computer power increasing since the 1980s,
researchers have been able to simulate language acquisition using neural network models.[7]
These models provide evidence that there may, in fact, be sufficient information contained in the
input to learn language, even syntax. If this is true, then an innate mechanism is no longer
necessary to explain language acquisition.
A feral child (also called wild child) is a human child who has lived isolated from
human contact from a very young age, and has little or no experience of human

care, behavior, or, crucially, of human language. Some feral children have been
confined by people (usually their own parents), and in some cases this child
abandonment was due to the parents rejection of a childs severe intellectual or
physical impairment. Feral children may have experienced severe abuse or trauma
before being abandoned or running away. Feral children are sometimes the subjects
of folklore and legends, typically portrayed as having been raised by animals.
Reality

Feral children lack the basic social skills that are normally learned in the process of
enculturation. For example, they may be unable to learn to use a toilet, have trouble learning to
walk upright after walking on fours all their life, and display a complete lack of interest in the
human activity around them. They often seem mentally impaired and have almost
insurmountable trouble learning a human language.[2] The impaired ability to learn a natural
language after having been isolated for so many years is often attributed to the existence of a
critical period for language learning, and taken as evidence in favor of the critical period
hypothesis.[3]
There is little scientific knowledge about feral children. One of the best-known examples, the
detailed diaries of Reverend Singh, who claimed to have discovered Amala and Kamala (two
girls who had been brought up from birth by wolves) in a forest in India, has been proven a
fraud to obtain funds for his orphanage. Child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim states that Amala
and Kamala were born mentally and physically disabled.[4]

Why Any Adult Can Learn a Second Language Like Their

Younger Self
Children are like sponges.
They can absorb foreign languages so quickly.
How many of you have heard this before?
Society is flooded with messages telling you who is and who isnt good at learning a language.
And if you asked any random person walking down the street who the champion of language
learners are, they would probably say children.
This seems like such an obvious truth that its hardly ever challenged.

Clearly everyone can speak their native language fluently, which they learned as a child, but
loads of people have trouble getting a grasp on a second language (or third if they grew up
bilingual).
So it must be that children are the perfect language learners, and all adults can hope for is to
achieve some fraction of their success, right?
Wrongtheres a fatal flaw in this logic.
Children live very different lives from adults and their reasons for learning a language are often
just as disparate. In fact, there are many reasons to believe that the popular opinion about
how poorly adults learn languages is fundamentally flawed.
From the lack of physical evidence for the superiority of language learning in children, a new
system of beliefs is beginning to sprout through the cracks of the old, oversimplified model of
age and language learning.
But where did these beliefs come from in the first place?
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take
anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

The Critical Period Hypothesis and Popular Belief

The Critical Period Hypothesis is the academic name for what most of us have come to believe
about adults and language learning. Its basic outline is that theres a fixed period of time in which
you can really learn a language and learn it well. After that good luck. Maybe you can aspire
to be like Luigi Risotto, the Italian chef from The Simpsons who speaks fractured though
understandable English, but dont get any hopes of sounding like a native.
This critical period is supposed to run from when youre born to sometime during adolescence,
when youre around 15 years old. In other words, this is the scientific basis of our poor opinion
of adult language learners.
But the question everyone wants to know is: Is it true? The answer: Maybe. Theres quite a bit
of debate over the topic, and it would be hard to say that anything is settled. But many
researchers have come out against the theory, some denying that a critical period exists at all.
Take David Singleton for example, a professor of linguistics at Trinity College Dublin. In his
papers he regularly criticizes those who side with the Critical Period Hypothesis and in one of

them he reviews the relevant literature on the biology of the brain only to conclude that theres
nothing solid about the science of a critical period. Thats right. No one has landed any fatal
evidence that this period exists in our brains at all.
So take a breath and let go of all your age-related anxieties.
But surely adults and children arent the same, you might say. Well of course not.
Whats the Difference Between Kids and Adults Anyways?

I think we can all makes some stabs at the general differences between adults and kids in how
they learn. Ive seen very few toddlers sitting at a desk diligently reading a grammar textbook for
hours at a time, though Im sure theres probably one somewhere.
But beyond the obvious differences, such as adults being more willing and able to learn in a
formal learning environment, there are some hen children learn new things about language, they
use the same part of their brain that they use for motor control. Adults, on the other hand, make
use of the part of their brain in charge of higher cognitive functionsthe part of the brain that
develops later.
Ah hah! you say. So there are differences between their brains! But remember this simple
means that how we use our brain changes as we age. It doesnt mean that how well we can learn
things also changes.
How else do adults differ? Well, they have a ton of knowledge already. And that can be both a
bad thing and a good thing. Sometimes the sounds and words weve learned when we were little
make it much harder to pick apart the words from other languages because were trying to force
them into the mold of our first language.
But sometimes its the exact opposite. If youre a good reader in your native language, those
skills usually translate into good reading skills in a foreign language. Sometimes even the sounds
in your native language can give you a leg up in foreign language pronunciation, as this study on
Korean speakers learning English has shown.
So Whos Better at Learning a Second Language: Kids or Adults?

Even if the theres no critical period to learn a language, theres still the question of who can
learn faster. We can break this down into several categories for ease of digestion.
Pronunciation

As adults or young adults, pronunciation is our weak point. Most sources tend to agree that while
it is possible in rare cases for adults to gain a completely native accent in a new foreign

language, it just doesnt happen that often. Kids are more adept at learning and using the sounds
of a language.
But for most adults, this doesnt really matter. Its more important to be understood than to
sound like a perfect native. After all, isnt that why youre learning a foreign language in the
first placeto communicate with others?
And on that score theres a long track record of people who can communicate quite well in a
second language learned later in life. Plus, if you really want to speak like a native, go for it! Its
still possible that you could be one of those few adults who really nails the pronunciation in their
second language.
Grammar and vocabulary

In grammar and vocab, adults and adolescents actually significantly outperform very young
children in the short-term. In the long-term, young children will eventually overtake the older
age groups, but only if theyre exposed to the foreign language enough.
In fact, if a young child is being taught in a formal setting, he or she may never catch up to
the adult at all. You heard that right. Sometimes adults really can outperform children when it
comes to foreign language.
Reading and complex thought

I said it before, but Ill say it again: If youre a good reader in your native language, youll
probably be a good reader in a foreign language. Thats because adults are good at taking
knowledge they already have and applying it to very similar new knowledge that theyre trying
to acquire. Why reinvent the wheel when you can just make a few adjustments?
And in fact, reading and anything dealing with complex thought is where adults really shine. The
critical period in no way applies here, and in fact the oppose could be said: The older the
better.

5 Reasons Adults Can Definitely Learn a Second Language

If youve read this far and still find yourself worrying about how well you can learn a language,
then lay back, relax and read on to let go of the last of your worries.
1. Age is only one factor.

We like to worry about age because it seems like theres an obviously better position to be in:
being a child. But since this is something beyond our control, we should instead focus on the
myriad of other factors that affect our learning.
For example, factors like motivation, personality, the learning environment and learning
strategies are all things we can control which have a huge impact on your success as a language
learner.
2. Children arent as strong as they seem.

Everyone loves to heap praise on children. Whether its a mom or dad doting on their own kid or
a child that gets random affection from strangers just for being cute, children tend to get a pass
for things that adults would never get away with.
The same is true for language. Children may sound like great speakers, but usually we have low
expectations for them. Kids tend to speak in simple sentences using only very basic vocab. This
is perfect for a child that doesnt yet have a need for complex language, but it also means that
kids are not really the language superstars we take them to be.
3. Even full-grown adults can reach near-native level.

This was mentioned earlier, but some adults do learn a second language and sound like a native.
If your goal is to move to Mexico, buy a farm in a backwater village and blend in with the
natives, dont let anyone dissuade you.
With enough practice under your belt and a can-do attitude, in time youll be able to boast about
your perfect Mayan grammar.
4. Language learning has health benefits.

Forget about your ineradicable foreign accent. All that work you spend learning a new language
will keep your brain healthy for years to come. What does a little imperfection in speech matter
when your entire clarity of thought is guaranteed to stay sharp well into old age?
5. Language learning is about connecting.

What is language for? Communicating to other people, of course. Perfection doesnt need to be
our endpoint. In fact, we can just as easily choose an entirely different goal, like making friends
in a foreign language.

Language exchanges or individual language partners are an excellent way to expand your social
circle. Most people will be quite happy if you can speak just well enough to hold up your end of
the conversation.
These are just a handful of the most obvious reasons to not pay attention to age. With so many
great possibilities available through learning a foreign language, why should you let a social
myth about age and language learning hold you back?
There are lots of things people miss about being a kid, but being able to learn a new language
doesnt have to be one of them.

When should a child learn a second language?

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Children and adult language learning differ in a number of ways. Firstly, the brain of a child is
still developing whereas the adult brain is fully mature. The childs is therefore more flexible
and the neurons in the language system can adapt in accordance to both a native and a foreign
language. This is why children are often able to learn a language without an accent in the speech
and are able to distinguish the phonology of their second language better. Adults on the other
hand, have a mature brain and are able to use their experience when learning. Adults are better
and faster at learning by analogy, and at learning abstract rules and applying them. In addition to
these differences in their brain capacity, children and adults typically also learn a second
language in very different environments. Adults and teens learn a new language in a formal
school setting, children learn by immersion e.g. in language day-care.

In order to answer when one should learn a second language, one should first determine what
one wants to optimize: the end result or time devoted to learning. As a rule of thumb, a language
which is learned before the ages of 6-9 is typically learnt to a level where the speaker has no
detectable accent and is very comfortable using it. However, this requires that a child spends a
considerable amount of time hearing and using the novel language. On the other hand, if a
language is learnt later, speakers may have a slight accent in their pronunciation but may
otherwise reach a very proficient native-like level. Moreover, in proportion adults spend
typically less time on the actual learning compared to small children learning a language. Of
course adults can also learn a language through the environment in which case the time devoted
to learning is similar to that of small children. Adults who learn this way typically nevertheless
have an accent while otherwise reaching a good level. It should also be noted that while children

are able to learn a language without an accent, both adults and children learn vocabulary equally
well.
Especially for elderly learners the motivation to learn plays a crucial part in the quality of the
outcome. In fact, even elderly people above 60 years can show good language learning results,
which has been shown to also have a protective effect for memory diseases such as
Alzheimers disease. Humans are naturally curious and people of all ages can be encouraged to
learn languages and explore other cultures in doing so.

Language and though

As a linguist, Noam Chomsky aims not only at making a technical contribution with
his generative theory of language but also at integrating his linguistic theory into a
wider view of the relationship between between language and the human mind. The
crux of this view is the hypothesis that human beings are born with an innate
knowledge of universal principles underlying the structure of human language.
Chomsky's ideas have exerted a powerful influence on the other disciplines by
restoring language to a central position in cognitive psychology and in the
philosophy of the mind. The wider impact on his redefinition of the subject gives him
a permanent place in the intellectual history of the twentieth century.

Children are better: A common belief


Most people believe that children are
better than adults when attempting to
learn a language

Factors involved in second language

acquisition can be divided into three
categories, they are:
1. Psychological ( intelectual processing,
memory and motor skills)
2. Social situation
3. Other Psychological Variables (>rst
language motivation, attitude)

Simultaneous bilingualism is a form of bilingualism that takes place when a child

becomes bilingual by learning two languages from birth. According to Annick De
Houwer, in an article in The Handbook of Child Language, simultaneous bilingualism
takes place in children who are regularly addressed in two spoken languages from
before the age of two and who continue to be regularly addressed in those
languages up until the final stages of language development.[1] Both languages are
acquired as first languages. This is in contrast to sequential bilingualism, in which
the second language is learned not as a native language but a foreign language.
Receptive Bilingualism

In cases where children learning two or more languages have few opportunities to speak one of
those languages, the children are likely to understand a great deal more of the language than they
are able to express in words. For many dual language learners, English is the language of the
larger social environment, and they may have had significant exposure to English prior to
preschool. However, they may have had little opportunity to practice using English. As a result,
these children may enter preschool with some understanding of English.
The process of receptive bilingualism differs from that of learning another language after a first
language has been established. The children are not learning the languages equally, as there is a
strong imbalance favoring the language being used more often. For example, in cases where
children attend schools where the home language is not supported and the child has more
exposure and opportunity to practice English than he does the home language, the child may
become a receptive bilingual in his home language.

Receptive bilinguals are those who have the ability to understand a second
language but who cannot speak it or whose abilities to speak it are inhibited by
psychological barriers. Receptive bilingualism is frequently encountered among
adult immigrants to the U.S. who do not speak English as a native language but who
have children who do speak English natively, usually in part because those
children's education has been conducted in English; while the immigrant parents
can understand both their native language and English, they speak only their native
language to their children. If their children are likewise receptively bilingual but
productively English-monolingual, throughout the conversation the parents will
speak their native language and the children will speak English.

Sequential bilingualism occurs when a person becomes bilingual by first learning one language
and then another. The process is contrasted with simultaneous bilingualism, in which both
languages are learned at the same time.
There is variation in the period in which learning must take place for bilingualism to be
considered simultaneous. Generally, the term sequential bilingualism applies only if the child is
approximately three years old before being introduced to the second language (L2).
Human language has two distinct layers: expressive and lexical. Both of these have existed in
nature for millennia. The melodic, beat-stressed expressive quality of our language is similar to
that used by birds. The lexical pragmatic, content-carrying parts of speech resemble the system
used by other primates. About 100,000 years ago, the research suggests, humans may have fused
the two together to form the building blocks of their own language. In doing so, they achieved
something astounding. Birdsong and primate language are both finite: They each contain only a
limited number of sounds, which supply a limited number of meanings. But by combining the
two, humans created a language that allows for infinite possible meaning combinations. This
complexity is part of what makes us, well, human.

Making meaning is one of the most important things we do. For starters, its something were
doing almost constantly. We swim in a sea of words. Every day, we hear and read tens of
thousands of them. And somehow, for the most part, we understand them. Constantly, tirelessly,
automatically, we make meaning. Whats perhaps most remarkable about it is that we hardly
notice were doing anything at all. There are deep, rapid, complex operations afoot under the
surface of the skull, and yet all we experience is seamless understanding.

Meaning is not only constant; its also critical. With language, we can communicate what we
think and who we are. Without language, we would be isolated. We would have no fiction, no
history, and no science. To understand how meaning works, then, is to understand part of what it
is to be human.
And not just human, but uniquely human. No other animal can do what we can with language. Of
course, parts of human language have homologues in other animals. People talk fast, and
sentences can be extremely complicated, but zebra finches sing tunes that rival our speed and
complexity. Humans can drone on and on, but even a filibustering senator doesnt outlast
humpback whales, whose songs can continue for hours. And although the human ability to
combine words in new ways seems pretty unique, its seen on a more limited scale in bees, who
dance messages to each other that combine information about the orientation, quality, and
distance of food sources.
For all these reasons, language has held a privileged spot in science and philosophy throughout
history. For centuries, philosophers have asked, what is it that we humans have that our tonguetied relatives dont? What cognitive capacities has evolution endowed us with that allow us to
understand and appreciate sonnets and songs, exhortations and explanations, newspapers
and novels?
But for the most part, weve failed to answer the most important question of all. Almost no one,
from lay people to linguists, really knows how meaning works.
That is, until recently. This is the age of cognitive science. Using fine measures of reaction time,
eye gaze, and hand movement, as well as brain imaging and other state-of-the-art tools, weve
started to scrutinize humans in the act of communicating. We can now peer inside the mind and
thereby put meaning in its rightful place at the center of the study of language and the mind.
With these new tools, weve managed to catch a glimpse of meaning in action, and the result is
revolutionary. The way meaning works is much richer, more complex, and more personal than
we ever would have predicted.
The Traditional Theory of Meaning
The scientific study of meaning is still in its infancy. But even in the absence of solid empirical
evidence, theories about how meaning works have developed and thrived. Over the years, most
linguists, philosophers, and cognitive psychologists have come to settle on a particular story that
probably isnt so different from your intuitive sense of meaning. When you contemplate meaning
in your daily life, its likely because youre wondering (or perhaps arguing about) what a given
word means. It might be a word in your own language: What does obdurate mean? (Stubbornly
persistent in wrongdoing, in case you were wondering.) Or it could be a word in another
language: What does the formidable German word Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung mean? (Speed

limit.) In general, youre probably most aware of meaning when youre thinking about
definitions. This is also the starting point for the traditional theory of meaning: Words have
meanings that are like definitions in your mind.
What would it be like if meaning worked this way? When you think about it, a definitional
meaning would need to have two distinct parts. The first is the definition itself. This is a
description of what the word means. Its articulated in a particular language, like English, and is
supposed to be a usable characterization of the meaning. But theres a second part, too, which is
implicit. The definition characterizes something in the world. So speed limit refers to something
that exists in real life, independent of your knowledge about it whether you know that theres
a speed limit, or what it is, you can still get pulled over for driving faster than the number on the
sign. So both the mental definition and the actual thing in the world that the word refers to are
each critical parts of the meaning of a word.
Many philosophers have taken it as a given that these two parts are all you need to characterize
meaning. And theyve gone on to argue for centuries about which of the two parts is more
importantthe mental definition or the real world. But the important question for our purposes
to understand how people understand is to ask how a definitional theory of meaning like
this could explain the things we do with language. Do we really have these definitions in our
minds? If so, where do they come from? How could we use them to plan a sequence of words?
How could we use them to understand something that someone else has said?
This is where things get a little more complicated. As with any definition, your mental
definitions would presumably need to be articulated in some language. But what language? Your
first thought might be that it should be your native language. Except, when you follow that idea
to its logical conclusion, theres a problem. If English words are defined in your mind in terms of
other English words, then how do you understand the definitions themselves? You end up going
in circles.
One solution to this problem is to suppose that we have some other system in our mind some
way to encode ideas and thoughts and reasoning that doesnt use English or any real language.
This mental language would need to have a lot of the stuff that a real language has it would
still have to be able to refer to things in the world, as well as properties, relations, actions, events,
and so on anything that we can think about and understand language about. In other words,
we might be thinking using something like a language of thought or Mentalese. Simply stated,
the language of thought hypothesis is that the meanings of words and sentences in any real
language are articulated in peoples minds in terms of this other, mental language. Mentalese is
supposed to be like a real language in that there are words that mean things and can combine
with one another, but, unlike a real language, it doesnt sound like anything or look like anything.