Regarding possible influences on thought Essay Example for Free

Regarding possible influences on belief EssayThere is an undeniable connection between thought and oral communication. And as thought is so all important(p) to our knowledge, a study of our delivery itself is necessary. This essay get pencil leads how our language might affect our thought. In doing so, I shall examine the question, what is language?.So, what is language? Etymologists, those who study language (in how it develops and changes), generally agree that language first started developing cardinal thousand to a hundred and fifty thousand years ago.It began when, by an evolutionary chance, the oesophagus go in human beings. This did two things firstly it made them very prvirtuoso to choking (this is often taken as proof that the ability to speak is innate in human beings for if benefits of speech were not real quickly this should energise died out al approximately immediately in accordance with the theory of evolution) and secondly it dramatically increased th e range of sounds they could produce orally. It is thought that the natural calls animals make shrieks of alarm to show danger etc demonstrable and became more complex to form a very basic language.Soon, these developed connotations variations of alarm calls could be use to convey fear, pain or sadness whilst variations of triumphant calls could be used to show happiness, safety or the location of food. Imitations of the sounds things made also developed a stream could be indicated by a gurgle, wind by a whoosh and so on. Examples of these two phenomenons continue laughter and crying is pretty customary in babies whilst young children often refer to police cars as whah whah in an imitation of their sound. Language was advertise developed, reflecting the need to talk about the speakers environment.A commonly quoted example of this is that the Inuit have twenty linguistic process for snow. not only is this debateable Inuit nouns are formed as in German, where nouns are tacked onto each other but also, incline has at least fifty However, a better example would be the aborigines of Tasmania who have a give way word for every kind of native tree, over two hundred in total, but do not have a word for tree. This is because in their environment, all the trees which surround them appear to be drastically varied. It is also said (perhaps somewhat dubiously) that Arabic has approximately six thousand words for camels and camel-equipment. T is undoubtedly that language is affected in its evolution by our surroundings and our need to communicate about them.The main problems with language preserve be its vagueness and also the item that it evolves according to our needs. Language is very vague and words can have myriads of meanings. In the English language, the word set has fifty eight non-obsolete uses as a noun, one hundred and twenty eight as a verb and ten as a participle adjective. The Oxford English Dictionary uses sixty thousand words, including abbr eviations and symbols, to define it and set is by no means alone.The fact that language reflects its environment means that when someone has an original thought they often have to come up with an entirely new vocabulary to explain it. An example of this would be the concept of the big bang. When the idea originated, the language used to describe it was wholly new and very few understood it. As the theory grew in popularity, its language was accepted into common usage. However, when the majority of the populace does not concern itself with that idea, the vocabulary become jargon, to be known only by experts. Language reflects or needs of it.Written language originated as logograms in the form of pictograms where to write house, one would draw a picture of a house. Soon these became ideograms where, as in language, associations where used e.g. a sun to represent heat. This is the basis of all languages and today can be seen in Chinese and Japanese, as well as the ancient hieroglyp hs, Linear A and Linear B. Some languages went one step further, changing from logograms to phonograms. This resulted in syllabic or alphabetic symbols, where words were written using their sounds in spoken language. This was the first link between written and spoken language. Written language, in our society, is now completely dependant on spoken language so the two are often seen as synominous.The Sapir-Whorf supposal argues that the nature of a particular language influences the habitual thoughts of its speaker. Different patterns of language would therefore lead to different patterns of thought. Thus this challenges that the world can be represented objectively, as language will influence its user. The most extreme supporters of this theory argue that thought is reliant on language and that therefore there can be no thought without language. The twentieth century Austrian philosopher, Wittgenstein says that, because of this, language hinders us. For example, when we say that we saw nobody on the road we have not actually seen nobody. More accurately, we did not see anyone on the road. some other twentieth century philosopher, a Rusiian named Vigotsky, would disagree with this.He held that language helps us to think. He says that the thought is consistent and is clarified by using language. However, a large number of people disagree with the extreme go steady that thought is impossible without language. Look, they say, at when we are lost for words or the words are on the tip of our tongue we know what were thinking but careen say it. Another example would be that we can often imagine in our heads as an image something for example, the beginning of the universe but cant describe it. This theory states language is created by thought, although language may later by used as a means through which to think. Many etymologists would agree with this theory as it complies with their theory on how language develops you see something, you think about it and th en you develop language to convey these thoughts and to clarify them.So, our language is shaped by the world around us, and our thoughts are shaped by our language. So our thoughts are influenced, not serious out of practicality, but empirically by our surroundings. For if we are not familiar with a concept or object or person then we are unlikely to have the language to describe it and if we dont have the language then we are unlikely to be able to think about something properly, even if we wished to.