A Tentative Study on the Relationship between Thought and Language

【Abstract】The relationship between language and thought has long been a fundamental problem for language theorists. This paper makes a brief review of the major arguments concerning the relationship between language and thought and it is found that thought and language can be separated while possessing co-influence between each other.

【Key words】language； thought； relationship

1. Thought is language

Contemporary proponents of this view hold that thought is a kind of behavior， mainly speech. Thinking is nothing but speaking.（Herder） Such theories are hold by behaviorists. According to B.F. Skinner（1957）， the simplest and most satisfactory view is that thought is simply behavior-verbal or nonverbal， covert or overt. It is not some mysterious process responsible for behavior but the very behavior itself in all the complexity of its controlling relations， with respect to both the behavior and the environment in which he lives. （Psycholinguistics： language， mind and world）.

Consider a situation where a person is talking to someone but is thinking of something else at the same time. That person might be talking to someone about a movie but also be thinking about how to go to school the next day， etc. one might even be telling a lie. Two distinct processes with different contents are occurring at the same time. If thought were merely some kind of internalized speech， serious problems would arise from this behaviorist conception. The issue of lying particularly places such a view in a difficult position， how could two different and opposing sentences be constructed as responses？

2. Language determines thought

Sapir-whorf hypothesis has generally been conceived as the representative of this viewpoint. The principle is often defined as having two versions： the strong version and the weak version.

Considering the fact that people in multi-lingual countries may share similar political， social， religious， scientific views. If a language system influences or determines world view， then we should expect that people of different languages should hold different world views， which is definitely not the truth.

3. The interactive relationship between language and thought

While the expression of abstract thinking is dependent on language， image thinking occurs without language （Daixian Zong， 1997）. First， new ideas can be provided through language. Suppose that I say， Lily is pregnant before she gets married. The sentence and the idea it expresses would be novel for you. If so， then the idea formed in your mind must be the result of hearing the sentence which I uttered. Novel sentences are created and understood on the basis of what a speaker already knows about the language in terms of its syntax and vocabulary. If new words are to be introduced， they are explained in terms of old ones. For example， individual constructivism by Piaget is unique in terms of the ideas it represents， it is not unique from the point of view of language. No syntax and only a small number of new items were introduced. The effect on peoples mind， however， has been profound. Thus we see that while knowing a language by itself does not influence thought， the use of that language may indeed effects the content and direction of particular thoughts. On the other hand， thought greatly influences the development of language. As we can see， thought system in the mind of children develops over time as input stimuli of the world， e.g. visual， auditory， and tactile stimuli representing objects， events and situations in the environment are experienced by children. That is， the development of thought is the prerequisite of language development.

Conclusion

The relationship between thought and language plays a vital role in revealing the rules of human language acquisition and thought patterns. While the difficulty is that we can hardly find a method to observe human thought activities directly. But it does not mean that we can not do research in this field. Through the discussion of the relationship between thought and language， scientific knowledge of thought， and language will be further developed.

References：

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作者简介：赵寒（1993-），女，汉族，河北邯郸人，南开大学硕士研究生，研究方向：外国语言学及应用语言学。