Amsel_ wrote:I guess there are two primary approaches to language: the first is that thoughts appear naturally in the human mind and words come about to simply express these thoughts that would still exist without the language. Another is that language is something that developed over time, primarily due to one's interactions with the external world.
You know, there's a bazillion theories on how language came to exist. I doubt it came about in a simple or sudden way, following a one-way dynamic (mind -> world or world ->mind). By doubting the idea that language is just a reflection of the world I wasn't trying to diminish the importance of the role played by the mind interacting with the world in the emergence of language. Obviously, no language could appear without the mind having any kind of interaction with a world. Even those niche cases of people from the deaf community who learn "home sign" still develop a form of cognition that is based on visual stimulation (or touch-based if they're both deaf and blind). They compensate for the lack of the ability to hear and learn how to speak with a form of inner cognition based on making logical connections between gestures and other events from the world.
So, no, I would not make such exclusive statements as:
- cognitions (thoughts) would still happen at the same level we're capable of right now even if we never developed language (this is demonstrably impossible)
- language is primarily the result of interactions with the world (other species also interact with the world, but they never developed articulated language, so there are definitely more factors at work here than just interaction with a world)
In the latter scenario, the limitations of language seem clear: the language can only be as advanced as the world. But the former scenario does offer room for thoughts that cannot yet be put into words. A concern with this would be that this doesn't prove the limitlessness of language, only that its limits expand as far as the psyche does.
Again, I don't see why one would exclude the other. I'm sure that both interaction with the world shaped language, just as inner psychological events left their mark on language development. In fact, I don't even think it's possible that language developed through only one of those two pathways. Considering that the psyche modulates how that experience of the world is
impressed upon the mind, one cannot opt for a purely experiential development of language that is devoid of any psychological involvement. I stressed the word "impressed" because it's important to differentiate between these two ideas which are not equally valid:
- language simply mirroring the world (an almost mechanistic relation between world <-> language)
- language being the result of experiencing the world -- meaning, the mind's inner representation of the world is just an impression, an arbitrary form (depending on different contributions from different sensory inputs, previous experiences, cultural patterns that filter your experience, sensory deprivation, etc)
I'm labouring this point because an impression on the mind is not just a mirror representation of the world; the psyche can also reflect the world in exaggerated, blown out ways that are not necessarily just simple mirrors. It's like comparing a painting by van Gogh to a realistic picture taken by a DSLR camera. Language has been greatly shaped by how our psyche reacted to the world rather than just simply reflecting it. There's a really kewl example with the "bouba/kiki effect", which shows that almost universally people associate sharp shapes with the "kiki" word and rounded shapes with "bouba". You could read many things into this, but one of the things I see in this effect is that there's a clear involvement of the emotional brain in how objects get their names in language. A sharper object tends to get associated more with "kiki", while more rounded objects with "bouba". It indicates to me that language is a moldable substance to which the emotional brain reacts and shapes it to reflect the impression that the world leaves on the mind.
If the scope of the psyche is greater than language, and language is a virtualization of the physical world and thus at a similar scope, the psyche, being greater, would be capable of grasping some sort of higher language. That ties in to some of the things I was talking about. But it also ties in to your concluding statement about language limiting expression rather than thought. With language being separate from the psyche, it makes sense that language would often fail to represent it perfectly, and thus fail to express many ideas.
I don't really know what you mean by "higher language". Language is so complex and large, you could define your own subset that would be more expressive than the rest of the language you chose to ignore. Or you could use it in such ways that maximised expressivity in phonemic, syntactic and semantic ways.
You could fail to express ideas not just because of language, but also due to not having a very clear or clarified concept of what you're trying to explain. I've rarely felt that language was such an obstacle that there was no way I could get a certain idea across, even in a hazy form.
As to language not limiting thought, I suppose I would agree with you. If the psyche and language aren't in perfect sync, there will be wordless thoughts.
It's possible to separate cognitions from language, though, I think most human cognition tends to be shaped or propped by language, though not all of it.
Maths are actually not considered to be part of language, but they are considered part of abstract thought. You can't really "speak in maths" and pass any arbitrary message using math notation. Brain studies like this one (
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC552916/) indicate that damage to the left hemisphere (which manages language abilities) does not impair someone's ability to do maths. I expect it's the same case with visual imagery and thoughts that are based on them, audio imagery and so on. Language plays an oversized role in human cognition, but it's one modality among others.