Language: An Analysis of Technology and Psychology
What is Language?
Language is a method of communication, either spoken or written to express themselves and/or the circumstances and situations. Modern languages are structured in a conventional way which can be said to have a syntax that is a set of phonetics and rules for the written versions.
Here, We are not only considering conventional languages. We also consider the languages of computers. More than the general public, a programmer has difficulty to change from one programming language to another once they have had sufficient experience in a language. Why is it difficult for us to be accepting of a new language or a new dialect or in-case of programmers a new syntax.
The answer is in psychology, the theories of mind are heavily judged and assessed on how well they explain language. The significance of language is so great, that it has a whole field dedicated to its study in most of the subjects that deal with the brain or brain-like structures.
Psychology of Language
We have long thought of language being associated with our very existence, we have found ways of communicating our very basic actions and emotions through some type of language.
Charles Darwin had a theory about this and he makes assumptions by saying “Man has an instinctive tendency to speak as we see in the babble of our young children, while no child has an instinctive tendency to bake, brew, or write.”
Darwin here is making a clear cut distinction between language as a form of communication for our actions or emotions and the nature of language as a speech form. Language is a universal concept, each society has a form of language attached to them which they use to communicate.
Everything roots back to the basic question of why the world has different languages and why can’t a single language be assigned as a global language or why does language differences make humans behave in a certain way with other individuals who speak a different language.
Here is what I believe, language is based on the very primitive pavlovian ideas, a person starts attaching positive and negative experiences with the use of certain actions or modality of speech which in turn creates a reinforcement, and since most of these experiences happen daily the reinforcement never ends. This creates an amazing algorithm in our brains which then starts using those words to see their effect and this is how a language is introduced; While this is true for children who understand what is positive and what is negative in the basic terms. Language is not as simple as other human capacities, it is to a degree very special and while it may look that language is a learned ability but it is not. It is considered as an innate ability, that later on attaches itself to positives or negatives.
Technology and Language
A person modifies their tone while speaking to different people based on their relationship with that person, this relationship may change with time and so might the tone and the modality of their language while speaking to that person. This is what is currently, lacking in our technology.
The technology of natural language processing, processes and computes with degrees of reinforcements and learnings based on huge amounts of data which are filtered through every day and some researches also talk about the emotional weight of a sentence or whatever text is passed on. The essence of the speech delivered needs to be understood and processed and we cannot do it with matrices based only on emotions classified into big large boxes.
This is simplistic clustering of a few songs and the words in their lyrics mapped to the mood that song is set in and as you can see songs and similarly speeches or maybe everyday conversations cannot be put into simplistic clustering or even most elaborate clusters as the tonality and the way of delivery of language are the key components that should decide the response.
The X-axis of the above graph portrays a Language Emotional Score, this is a very vast scoring matrix as I created it on the basis of how high the tone and pitch of the song goes while they sing a particular song and which emotion is connected to it which is mapped to the y-axis as the emotional value return. Root around is just a centroid that has been used to create the clusters.
The most pertaining question through this analysis, I brought up to myself is how even though conversations (Songs in this case) have different languages the tonality and pitch for certain emotions remain the same while for certain emotions they exist on the opposite spectrum to each other.
There needs to be a better thought process attached to creating technology that has an innate thought process. I believe we are a bit far from that technology but with continuous efforts, we, will reach there and I would love to give a bit of push with my thinking on this topic, I will further discuss a very prominent question in psychology(Since that is the field what drives most of our efforts in the area of Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning).
Does the language you learn change the way you think?
The following is all my belief and my interpretation based on a small survey conducted with about 70 people. Divide on basis of language exists because another language is seen as a threat to persons’ own culture and beliefs. Humans as a species seek approval the most and confirmation of their beliefs so when another language or a culture enters their social space they feel threatened and hence react or behave differently then what they behave with their own group. The language barrier is not only a communication barrier but also a cultural and opportunity barrier.
Languages create a sense of belonging between a group of people. Language holds way more influence on human behavior than most care to admit. The language a group of friends speaks amongst them and how that language changes as they interact with elders or family. This shows that language and behavior change as social settings change.
Similarly, when a person who does not speak the language of a region enters they don’t feel a sense of belonging and that is the reason why they try to learn the language because it gives them an opportunity to fit in with the society there. The preceding example is positive, but the language divide also leads to bitter resentment between two groups of people who speak different languages. This bitter resentment also, funnily enough, lies even in tech geeks who vote every year for the language of the year!
The fact that humans want their way of life to be accepted by society, therefore, trying to assert dominance over others who follow different cultures; language is one such tool; that they believe holds such power. (Also, why we love Americans trying hard to speak Indian languages). This is also the reason why one language can never be accepted as a global language; since everyone believes their language is the best.
The Y-Axis in the following is the number of people that have the problem of learning a new language at an X-axis scale of 1–10.
This is not only because of a barrier that exists in our mind, the barrier of language which our mind speaks to us, or our internal language. This problem in adjusting or learning a new language challenges our very core values and hence creates a mental barrier that pushes a defense mechanism from our brain and starts projecting in our actions as we become unwilling to learn a new language. This creates a barrier in communication from both parties and hence, language barriers are the most difficult to overcome in any partnership. There will always lie that minuscule mistrust between both parties. This is why assimilation is the key otherwise, we are doomed to neglect opportunities that knock at our doors.
Even students that study at some of the best universities still hold their languages close to their hearts and refuse the idea of global language which would just open up opportunities that might not be available if a global language did not exist. The threat they feel to their own language creates the barrier, not the language itself, which is often blamed.
The following graph contains the number of people scaled against the support for the existence of a common global language.
Language and Companionship go hand in hand and help a person grow but also create a barrier if not understood. Languages are treasured and make up a society more vibrant and colorful. It also leaves a major problem as people are not able to unlink themselves from the language they speak.
Conclusion
The study of language or linguistics is one of the most sought after fields in neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, and even computer science(eg. NLP). It is vast enough to accommodate all of it and vibrant enough to provide surprising results every now and then, to come up with technologies that come close to how humans process languages. The research needs to focus on human behavior as well as human psychology associated with language and not just hard clusters we have taken our studies into.
Adios!
Github: www.github.com/dhruvbatta
