Does Language Shape our Thinking?
Why the Limits of Your Language Can Define the Limits of Your World.
By Renata Schiavo
The philosopher from whom our start-up takes his name, Ludwig Wittgenstein, claimed that “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world”. To what extent was he right?
According to Ferdinand de Saussure, the father of modern linguistics, our thought would be an “amorphous and indistinct mass” without language. The words we used to speak, but also the way in which any language organizes concepts can be considered as the hidden force that brings order to our mind, helping us to clarify things, ideas and even feelings, by giving them a name.
In the first half of the twentieth century, it was also posited that the categories expressed by a language ‘determined’ the categories of thought of its speakers. In other words, this means that concepts would not exist in our mind without a language, with the consequence that the language would be what really determines thought. This theory, also known as Linguistic Relativity or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, from the name of the two scholars behind it, played a central role in the history of the philosophy of language. And, although subsequent studies have shown that such rigid determinism would not be grounded, however, it is out of doubt that the language and the way we speak somehow guide the way we think about the world and our experiences of it.
Recent experiments have shown, for example, that native Russian speakers are faster at distinguishing shades of blue than English speakers and how this ability would depend on the fact that in Russian there are two different words to indicate different shades of blue (“goluboj” for light blue, and “sinij” for dark blue), while in English only a word is employed for both color shades. In a certain sense, therefore, it is correct to say that language can craft our reality.
Is There any Correlation Between a Broader Vocabulary and a Successful Life?
If languages affect the way we think and categorize the world, it is legitimate to wonder if we can become smarter by improving our language skills. Some studies have demonstrated how a broader vocabulary in children is correlated not only to intelligence but also to greater chances of success in life. However, in this regard, it was also pointed out how the experiments that led to these results may be biased.
It would be a kind of chicken and egg problem: perhaps a greater intelligence is the factor that would determine a larger vocabulary in children. Other scholars, instead, have sustained that the experiments did not take into account socio-economic factors. Belonging to a more affluent family can indeed give greater intellectual stimuli to children in order to increase their vocabulary, but also more chances of being successful in life, regardless of the number of words one is able to use… But the matter is much more complex than it may appear at first glance.
Mastering a Language to Better Understand our Inner World
Low language skills can affect how one experiences feelings, emotions, and interpersonal relationships. A 1999 study by Kathy Stansbury and Laura K. Zimmerman has shown that children with a vocabulary deficit can have major problems in socializing and are more at risk of developing psycho-pathologies. This would be due to the fact that a strong correlation between language skills and the ability to control negative emotions exists. It was also pointed out that a larger vocabulary is often linked to better interpersonal skills.
Reading a lot and appreciating good literature can thus be an irreplaceable weapon not only to face existential crises but also to solve small everyday problems.
A Second Language is a Second Soul
If possessing higher language skills can make your life easier, what happens when you start to master more than one language? According to tradition, Charlemagne, who lived during the eighth century, would have said that knowing two languages means having two souls. And, several recent studies seem to have proved that the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire was right.
People actively involved in learning a foreign language can experience several positive psychological effects. For example, some experiments seem to suggest that the persons who are learning a second language often exhibit more empathy and a global mindset; it was also found an interesting correlation between the knowledge of a foreign language and creativity. Moreover, as already stressed in another post, mastering English can increase your chance of getting a good job and thus boost your wage.
So, if encouraging children to learn new words every day, perhaps, will not automatically transform them into the future Elon Musk, it is certainly true that improving language skills or knowing more than one language can help in increasing greater awareness of oneself and make life easier.
