I regularly struggle to find the words to adequately express my abstract thoughts. How can this be if the very thoughts I want to express are in the form of words? It doesn't make any sense at all. Am I (and Einstien) the only people to experience this difficulty? Am I some sort of liguistic imbecile?
Oni writes:
But language itself is not a concept, it's a physical representation of reality via sounds and signs so you can then create ideas/concepts/thoughts etc.
Unless one can grasp the concept of "physical representations of reality" and the need to share these for purposes of communication language will be impossible.
Question: How can anyone incapable of abstract thought grasp the idea of "physical representations of reality"?
Oni writes:
I believe you are talking out of your (as you would say) arse here, Strag.
Not according to psychological reasearch (as opposed to your merry band of philosophers)
Evidence that thought and language are not one and the same thing is provided by the existence of those with unusual brain abnormalities. Consider those with "chatterbox syndrome". Linguistically highly capable and eloquent to the point that their extreme cognitive retardation and tenuous comprehension of what they are saying is heavily masked by their overdeveloped linguistic ability.
The first link below is a transcript of such a patient (referred to as DH in the second link). She is severely retarded and functions in everyday life at the retarded level. She has been unable to learn to read and write in her late teenage years and cannot add or handle money. Despite having no bank account and only even vaguely grasping what a "bank account" or a "bank book" is this is the sort of thing she is capable of producing:
Link writes:
I like opening cards. I had a pile of post this morning and not one of them was a Christmas card. A bank statement I got this morning!
My mum works over at the, over on the ward and she said ‘not another bank
statement.’ I said ‘it’s the second one in two days.’ And she said ‘Do you want
me to go to the bank for you at lunchtime?’ and I went ‘No, I’ll go this time and
explain it myself.’ I tell you what, my bank are awful. They’ve lost my bank book,
you see, and I can’t find it anywhere. I belong to the TSB Bank and I’m thinking
of changing my bank ’cause they’re so awful.
Link
This link discusses the conclusion of the psychologist investigating these sorts of cases:
Link writes:
"Although Laura produces sentences with multiple embeddings, can conjoin verb
phrases, produce passives, inflect verbs for number and person to agree with the
grammatical subject, and forms past tenses when the time adverbial structurally
refers to a previous time, she can not add 2+2, read nor write nor tell time. She does
not know who the president of the US is or what country she lives in and does not
know her own age. Her drawings of humans resemble potatoes with stick arms and
legs. Yet, in a sentence imitation task she both detected and corrected surface syntactic
and morphological errors, but she is unable to tie her shoes."
"These cases demonstrating that syntax can be acquired even with severely
impaired or limited conceptual and cognitive development are further supported by
the studies of children with internal hydrocephaly who Cromer (1991) refers to as
having the ‘chatterbox syndrome’ - they talk excessively but their speech lacks content.
One case studied extensively by Cromer referred to in the literature as D.H,
whose speech is fluent, appropriate and not bizarre, is filled with complex syntactic
forms, shows the correct use of semantic constraints, an extensive vocabulary,
and incorporates the use of normal pragmatic devices. But on a large variety of standardized
tests she performs at the severely retarded level and functions in everyday
life at the retarded level. She has been unable to learn to read and write in her late
teenage years and cannot add or handle money, yet D.H. performs almost without
error on grammaticality judgments.
Cromer’s conclusion was that language acquisition
proceeds on a different course, basically independent of general cognitive
development and suggests that such cases seem to show that general cognitive
mechanisms are neither necessary nor sufficient for the growth of language.
Link
Once you have given your thoughts on the above we can consider the opposite cases. Namely those who have had parts of their brain damaged and whose linguistic ability is adversely affected whilst general cognition remains unimpaired.
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