Do We Use Language or Does Language Use Us?

Introduced by Mike Ingham

Moderated by Alan Taylor

Notes on the 25/11/02 meeting of HKPC's Kowloon Branch

(Reported by Steve Palmquist)

Mike introduced the topic by going through his handout, where a number of basic distinctions are introduced, such as: language as invention vs. convention; language as revealing truth vs. creating truth; language as organic vs. mechanical. He also mentioned several points regarding the political use of language as a means of control, and the close connection between language and our ability to experience freedom.

The question time began with a series of exchanges about the issue of language and “political correctness”—though Mike said he does not particularly like this term. Making fun of a bad idea, he claimed, is better than “banning the book”. And the same goes for attempts to keep a particular language “pure”. Examples were discussed from English, French, and Cantonese (where there does not seem to be much emphasis on linguistic purity). In response to a question from Alan about the attempt some have made to create a single, global language, Mike responded skeptically, pointing out that Esperanto (one such attempt) never really caught on.

Mike was then asked to clarify the second half of the title, particularly in reference to Chomsky. He replied that, whereas Chomsky did not actually argue that language “uses us”, he did develop a creative model for language acquisition, based on the claim that we all have a language-acquisition device in our brains. Chomsky’s recent work, mainly on language criticism, has been rather unpopularly political. Regarding mode of acquisition, one questioner asked whether input alone is enough to enable a person to learn a language, or whether both speaking and reading are necessary. Mike replied that he knows of at least one case where someone learned English very well simply by reading and listening to the radio.

The next question asked whether we can expand the meaning of “language” to realms other than speech, such as music or graphic communication. Music, as one person pointed out, can convey ideas. Mike agreed, noting that the realm of wordless communication provides an entirely new “vector of meaning” to the discussion. Cinema, for example, is in a sense a distinct, with its own grammar, etc. The same could also be said for mathematics, as another participant pointed out.

Someone then asked Mike whether he had any definition of “language”. Not wanting to be seen as a skeptic in this area, Mike suggested the following: language is what I can express before I know what I cannot express. Alan concluded the question time by asking us to reflect on whether language determines how we think, or if it would be possible to think without language.

The small group I joined started out by observing that ICQ has created a new way of communicating, and that the medium does seem to control the people using it, to some extent. People whose grammar is otherwise quite good, for example, will begin to write in ways they would never think of writing in other contexts. We then spent a long time discussing the role of primitive languages, where language seems to be more pictorial, and develops in “chunks”. One “wild child” (raised by animals until the age of 14), for example, had a self-concept even though he could not speak any human language; to him, the humans seemed wild! From there we went on to discuss the relation between thought and language. We all agreed that they develop together, as is evidenced by “stream of consciousness” writing (such as Virginia Wolff’s “To the Lighthouse”). With language and thought, it seems, we are “building the boat in which we are floating”.

Since language has much to do with our self-identity, including our culture, it seems that important elements of culture are inevitably lost when languages merge. One group member asked: does developed language make us better or worse at expressing ourselves? Participants seemed to agree that we tend to lose our imagination the more complex we (and our language) become. On the issue of communicating with others, someone pointed out that some common ground must be presupposed to exist between two people, otherwise they would be unable to communicate. One scholar has called this “overlap” in our linguistic and/or thinking patterns “intersticial spaces”.

Our small group concluded the discussion with some interesting reflections on whether or not it is possible to think without words or language. The fact that an idea can pop into your head in an instant but then take ten minutes to explain seems to indicate that thought can go beyond language—even though, as one member noted, Hegel argued that thought could not exist without language. One member illustrated the apparently prior (perhaps even controlling) nature of thought when she said: “thoughts that find words are more meaningful.” We then debated this point, though, in view of the somewhat mystical implications of Wittgenstein’s claim (at the end of his Tractatus) that “Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent.” This seems to indicate that the most meaningful areas of human life, such as pure mystical awareness or the feeling of love or the artist’s expression of some deep emotion, cannot “find words” after all!

After Alan reconvened the small groups, someone kicked off the concluding discussion with a joke: “no matter what you say, your wife won’t understand.” Another participant, taking this seriously (as philosophers have the habit of doing!) observed that this joke is rooted in a real difference between the male and female brain.

Alan then asked whether any of the small groups had come up with a good definition of “language”. One group had defined it as a mode of expression intended for communication. Another claimed that it is fundamentally different for different cultures. Someone agreed with the latter, relating how he found it much easier to learn English one he figured out the “internal logic” of the language. Mike turned this around and asked whether it is ever possible for Westerners to think in Chinese. The person who responded said “yes!” and noted that Europeans tend to think analytically whereas Chinese tend to think synthetically. (The point here, apparently, was that we all have the potential to think in both ways, so it is possible to train ourselves to “switch”.) Alan pointed out that even within one language, fundamentally different ways of thinking can be observed, as in the difference between American and British English. In response to some suggestions that there might also be some fundamental difference between the Chinese brain and the Western brain, someone pointed out (quite astutely) that this is highly unlikely, since any person, dropped anywhere in the world (presumably, at a young age) will learn the language of that region.

At this point Alan raised the question: is it possible to translate between two languages? The first response took up the negative side: each word in each language has so many chains of references attached to it that accurate translation into another language is impossible. But someone else pointed out that the same thing happens when two people talk using the same language. One person gave an example of an English idiom that has an exact equivalent in Chinese. To Alan’s follow-up question, whether it is ever possible to describe something in totally unbiased terms, the reply came: mathematics attempts to do just this; but perhaps in this application it is not a language.

The last few exchanges related (rather loosely) to issues of globalization: whether everyone will eventually have to learn one language, or many; the problem of what the world is developing into; the fact that images can be used as tools of domination just as much as words often are; the problem of the media’s influence in this respect; the difficulty “jargon” causes for any attempt to educate someone in English; and the fact that computers are now beginning to imitate people. Finally, at Alan’s prompting, Mike closed with a brief concluding statement, as follows: “Words fail me!”

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The following suggestions were given for future discussion topics:

- globalization

- Are things infinitely divisible?

- What is mathematics?

- humanism

- euthanasia

- mysticism

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This page was uploaded on 16 December 2002.