Language, Thought and Culture

The relationship of language, thought, and culture is a topic that is central to psycholinguistics.
People throughout the ages have wondered whether speech or language is necessary for
thought.The relationship of language, thought, and culture is a topic that is central to
psycholinguistics. People throughout the ages have wondered whether speech or language is
necessary for thought.
Four theories regarding the dependence of thought and culture on language:
Theory 1: Speech is essential for thought. We must learn how to speak aloud, otherwise we
cannot develop thinking.
1. Proponents of the theory
Proponents of theory is a kind of behavior that originates from speech production. Theories
are held by behaviourists who wish to get rid of mind and mentalism in psychology,
linguistics, and philosophy and to replace the notion of thought or cognition with something.

2. Inadequacies of the theory

Six objections to this theory:
1. Children having no speech production can comprehend speech and think.
The ability to utter speech in appropriate situations is a good indicator of language
knowledge, the absence of the ability to produce speech may not indicate a lack of
language.
2. Speech comprehension, which implies thought, develops before speech production in
normal children.
The developmental process is that speech comprehension precedes speech production. It
is the pattern that continues throughout the acquisition process (Ingram, 1989). The
comprehension and production processes develop in a parallel mode with production
always trying to keep up with comprehension. As the child acquires an aspect of language
in comprehension, the child can then try to figure out how to use it in production. The child
attempts to coordinate production with respect to the system that has been developed for
understanding (Clark and Hecht, 1983).
3. Simultaneously speaking aloud while thinking about something different commonly occurs
in everyday life.
4. Telling a lie.
 The very essence of a lie is saying one thing while thinking something quite different.
Behaviourist wish to use one process of sentence creation for both processes saying and
thinking simply by distinguishing the overt (speaking aloud) sentence from the covert
(speaking to oneself or subvocally) sentence. Clearly, a valid psycholinguistic theory must
allow two distinct processes with different content to occur at the same time. The issue of
lying demonstrates that the Behaviourist cannot define thought out of existence.
5. Meaning and thought occur without behavior
Skinner suggested that behavioural responses could be the basis of thought inaddition to
speech utterances. It seems that Skinner was influenced by the work of some Behaviourist
psychologists who were his contemporaries around the 1950s. They concluded that
thinking was nothing more than a reflection of physical events in the body. Many
psychologists believed that they had begun to localize meaning and thought in the body so
that once and for all mind could be banished from psychology.
6. Interpreting between languages can be done.

Theory 2: Language is essential for thought. We must learn language, how to produce or
understand speech, otherwise we cannot develop thinking.

1. Proponents of the theory: Language is essential for thoughts

“The writer, for one, is strongly of the opinion that the feeling entertained by so many that
they can think, or even reason, without language is an illusion.” (Edward Sapir, 1921, p. 15)

2. Inadequacies of the theory: Language is essential for thoughts.

 Deaf persons without language can think
 Multilinguals are whole persons
If the language system forms thought, and if different languages form different thought
systems, then such persons would have formed more than one system of thought. on the
other hand, If multilingual persons have more than one thought process (one for each
language), such persons would not be able to think coherently or would have separate
thought intelligences or personalities. However, no evidence of such malfunctioning or any
other sort of problems for multilingual persons has ever been observed.
Theory 3: Language determines or shapes our perception of nature. The learning of language will
determine or influence the way we perceive the physical world, visually, auditorily,
etc.

1. Proponents of theory Newtonian

space, time, and matter are not intuitions. They are recepts from culture and language.
That is where Newton got them. (Benjamin Whorf, from Carroll, 1956, p. 153)

2. Inadequacies of the theory

3. Perception, interest, and need determine vocabulary

Theory 4: Language determines or shapes our world view. The learning of language will
determine or influence the way we understand our culture and the world.
1. Proponents of the theory
Some theorists believe that even if language is somewhat distinct from thought,
nevertheless, knowing a language will itself condition and influence one’s cultural, social
beliefs or views of the world. For example, in the early part of the nineteenth century,
Wilhelm von Humboldt held that language embodies the spirit and national character of a
people. Sapir, Whorf, Korzybski claim that the language system does provide a view of
culture and society and an outlook on the world.
2. Inadequacy of the theory
In this regard, we would like to provide objections to these contentions. These are:
1. Same language yet different world views.
2. Different languages yet similar world views.
3. Same language but world view changes over time
4. Multilinguals have a unitary world view.
The best theory: Thought is independent of language
1. Thought is independent of language.
2. The development of thought precedes the development of language.
3. The notion of ‘thinking in language’ is a fallacy.