LANGUAGE & THOUGHT
Nesif Al-HemiaryAssistant Professor
Language
Language: is our primary means of communicating thought.Every human society has a language and every human being of normal intelligence acquires his or her native language and uses it effortlessly.
Levels of language
Language has two aspects : production and comprehension.In the production of language we start by a thought, somehow translate it into a sentence, and end up with sounds that express the sentence.
In the comprehension of language we start by hearing sounds in the form of words ,combine the words to create a sentence, and then somehow extract meaning from it.
Language use seems to involve moving through various levels:
a. sentence units.
b. words, prefixes, and suffixes.
c. speech sounds.
Language is a multi-level system for relating thoughts to speech by means of words & sentence units.
Language units and processes
Speech sounds: called phonemes & they correspond to letters but they are speech sounds not letters.
Every language has a different set of phonemes which is one reason we often have difficulty learning to pronounce foreign words. Another language may use phonemes that do not appear in ours.
When phonemes are combined in the right way, we perceive them as words.
Each language has its own rules about which phonemes can follow others. In English for example /b/ cannot follow /p/ at the beginning of a world.
Word units:
What we typically perceive when we listening to speech are not phonemes but words. Words carry meaning. Prefixes such as “un” or suffixes such as “ly” also carry meaning.
Morpheme :refer to any small linguistic unit that carries meaning. Most morphemes are themselves words.
Most words denote some specific content such as “house” or “run” .
A few words primarily serve to make sentences grammatical like “the, in, of, on, and, at”.
Sentence units
Sentences are formed from words.They correspond to parts of thoughts or propositions.
A proposition can be divided into:
a- subject.
b- predicate.
example: The student is clever.
The student : subject
is clever : predicate
Syntactic rules: are used for combining words into phrases and phrases into sentences.
Language and brain
The areas of the brain that mediate language lie in the left hemisphere and include :
1- Broca’s area : lies in the posterior part of the frontal lobe.
2-Wernicke’s area: which lies in the temporal region.
Damage to Broca’s area (Broca’s aphasia):disfluent speech(pauses & hesitations are plentiful ).
Damage to Wernicke’s area(Wernicke’s aphasia):
language preserve syntax but devoid from content. There are problems in finding the right noun and sometimes words are invented for the occasion.
Development of language
Infants appear to be programmed to learn phonemes, but they need several years to learn the rules for combining them.When children begin to speak ,they first learn words that name concepts that are familiar in their environment. Then they move to sentences.
Children learn language in part by testing hypotheses even unconsciously.
These hypotheses tend to be guided by a small set of operating principles, which calls the children’s attention to critical characteristics of utterances, such as word endings.
Innate factors also play a major role in language acquisition.
Evidence for that :
Children in all cultures seem to go through the same stages in acquiring their language.Some language abilities are learned only during a critical period.
The first months of life are critical for homing in on the phonemes of one’s native language.
There is also a critical period for acquiring the sound system of a second language (childhood).
Concepts & categorization(the building blocks of thinking)
Thought :can be conceived as the “language of the mind”.
One mode of thought corresponds to the stream of sentences that we seem to hear in our mind.
It is referred to as propositional thought because it expresses a proposition or claim.
Another mode is “ imaginal thought” correspond to images ,particularly visual ones , that we can see in our minds.
Functions of concepts
A concept represent an entire class; it is a set of properties that we associate with a particular class. Our concept of a cat for example, include the properties of having four legs and whiskers.Concepts serve some major functions in mental life :
1 - To divide the world into manageable units. Categorization :refers to the process of assigning an object to a concept.
2- Concepts allow us to predict information that is not readily perceived.
Types of concepts
A concept include both:1- A prototype :properties that describe the best example of the concept; in the concept grandmother for example your prototype include such properties like : a woman who is in her 60s, has grey hair, and loves to spend time with her children.
The prototype is what usually comes to mind when we think of the concept. But although the prototype properties may be true of a typical grandmother they clearly are not true of all situations.
2-A core: compromises the properties that are most important for being a member of the concept. Your core of the concept of grandmother would probably include the properties of being a female parent of a parent, the properties that are essential for being a member of the concept.
Core properties play a major role in processing well defined concepts (grandmother) where as prototype properties dominate in fuzzy concepts( bird).
Most natural concepts seem to be fuzzy, they lack true definition , and categorization of these concepts relies on prototypes.
Reasoning
When we think in terms of proposition ,our sequence of thoughts is organized. The kind of organization of interest to us here manifests itself when we try to reason .
In such cases, our sequence of thought often takes the form of an argument, in which one proposition corresponds to a claim , or conclusion , that we are trying to draw. The remaining proposition are reasons for the claim or premises for the conclusion.
Types of reasoning:
1-Deductive reasoning.
2-Inductive reasoning.
Problem solving
Problem solving requires breaking down a goal into sub-goals that can be obtained more easily.• 1. difference reduction:
-represent the problem.
- determine the goal.
-breakdown the goal into sub- goals.
-select a problem solving strategy and apply it to achieve each sub- goal.
2. Means – end analysis:
We compare our current state to the goal state in order to find the most important difference between them, and eliminating this difference becomes our main goal.3. Working backward from the goal;
This strategy is particularly useful in solving mathematical problems.
Disorders of thought
There are 2 kinds of thought disorders:Disorders of content of thinking: the presence of abnormal thoughts like delusions, obsessions, overvalued ideas, and suicidal thoughts.
Disorders of the form of thinking: which includes abnormalities in the structure of thinking (the connection between thoughts) like loosening of associations, derailment, knight move thinking, and word salad.
Delusions
Delusion: is a false unshakable belief based on wrong inference of external reality; that is not amenable for reasoning and is not acceptable by the patient’s culture.
Many types: persecutory, grandiose, guilt, infidelity, passivity, love, possession of thoughts.
Delusions are common in psychotic disorders like schizophrenia, delusional disorder, schizo-affective disorder and post-partum psychosis. They can occur with medical diseases, drugs, and addiction.
Obsessions
Recurrent ,intrusive ideas, images or impulses.Recognized by the patient as silly or excessive or unnecessary but cannot be resisted.
They cause distress or anxiety to the patient and remain for considerable time.
Examples: obsessions of contamination, doubt, symmetry, religious and aggressive obsessions.
They are the main symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder(OCD) and may or may not be accompanied with repetitive acts or behaviours called compulsions.