There are times in a day when I catch myself thinking: "I am or I am not thinking in a language?" When I am sure that I am indeed thinking in either English or Polish, this is most often while engaging in the mental process of dressing up a thought in words, a thought that I wish to express, verbally or in written form. Yes, I think in language when I'm interfacing with media – reading or listening. But what about the rest of the time, when my mind's freewheeling?
I remember in the early summer of 1966, ahead of our family holiday to Poland, lying awake at night and thinking how I would speak to the Polish children that I'd meet and play with while there. Consciously, I framed imaginary conversations in Polish. By then, having completed four years of English primary school education, my default language was already English. And yet I was surprised in my own mind just how easily I could flip to Polish. Of course, I was unaware of being unaware of the latest slang that would be employed in a Polish school playground, vocabulary not used around our kitchen table. But otherwise, as I lay in bed in West London, I felt I could handle the linguistic switch.
*****
Generally, when I'm not preparing a speech or working out what I want to write next, my thinking is language-neutral. I know this is the case whenever I get stuck for a word. I know the exact meaning, but couldn't recall the precise word. Seeking the right word, I'll toggle between English and Polish, or use an online Thesaurus should that fail. But my mind has the concept understood – or 'grokked' to use current parlance – perfectly.
To see whether you think in a language or not, try to catch yourself in the middle of a train of thought – or indeed, a stream of consciousness. Ideally, when you're in the middle of a routine task, such as taking out the household waste or making the bed. Stop, and then track back along that train (or stream), and see whether you were indeed forming words in a given language, or if they were just concepts, unadorned by language, not expressed as words.
Bilingualism makes this process easier, for you can check whether there was vocabulary deployed within that train of thought, and unusual words in a given language act as readily identifiable markers.
Below: an excerpt from Lex Fridman's April 2024 interview with MIT psycholinguistics professor, Edward Gibson. Scroll forward to 08:30 ('Thoughts and words'). It seems, according to Prof Gibson, that 70% to 75% of people do think in a language, resulting in the percept of an inner conversation. He could not explain why – both he, and Lex Fridman, and indeed myself, do not experience this. Is bilingualism an explanation, or part of the explanation? Or is it something entirely different?
Faith, construction, history in Wrocław
A better tomorrow - geodiversity
New Nikons on the way!
This time 12 years ago:
Work continues on S2, going under the railway lines
This time 12 years ago:
Stand Easy! - a short story
This time 13 years ago:
God Save The Queen - I mean it, Ma'am
This time 17 years ago:
Legoland, just outside Warsaw's borders
Posts
4 comments:
Excellent question. But does it only apply to people who are fluent in more than one language?
My question above may seem redundant, but are our thoughts even constructed in terms of language, regardless of whether we may be bilingual, multilingual or not? I often find myself, for no good reason, thinking: ‘what’s the Polish word for whatever I’ve just thought of? ‘ I’m pretty sure that my default language, as you phrase it, is English - it’s the one I use most often, and I’m more comfortable reading English-language authors than working my way through Polish texts, but my very first language as a child was Polish. So some vestiges of my first thinking patterns clearly remain. And this may also be the place to thank my parents for teaching me Polish. It has been very useful, for example, when researching my family history.
Cheers
MK
I wonder if Prof Gibson's conclusion (13.05) where he says evidence suggests that 'language isn't necessary for thinking', might explain my wanting to attach a Polish word to what I was thinking (comment above). Maybe I didn't think of the English word first of all, but a concept/an image? Quite a fascinating subject.
"are our thoughts even constructed in terms of language...?"
This is such a profound question. I believe our default mode is thinking in terms of concepts, then dressing them up into words in a given language, to share that thought with others.
Post a Comment