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finally somebody dares to say it: Chomsky's wrong. (It's also quite obvious that a linguist would say that "language" is of the utmost importance).
by toolslive 10y ago
finally somebody dares to say it: Chomsky's wrong.
(It's also quite obvious that a linguist would say that "language" is of the utmost importance).
- eli_gottlieb 10y agoLots of people dare to say it. Then Chomsky comes to their research talks and heckles them.
- corecoder 10y agoWhat is he wrong about, exactly? (by the way, thousands of people have been saying that Chomsky's wrong for some fifty-something years, now).
- tim333 10y agoI'm not sure he is wrong. Here's a quote with his position. Seems fairly reasonable: QUESTION: It might help if you could define how you use the term “cognition” as opposed to the term “language.” CHOMSKY: Well, I wouldn’t use the term “cognition” as opposed to the term “language.” Rather, cognition is an overall term that includes every system of belief, knowledge, understanding, interpretation, perception, and so on. Language is just one of many systems that interact to form our whole complex of cognitive structures. (https://chomsky.info/1983____/ https://chomsky.info/1983____/)
- toolslive 10y agoI'm referring to the idea that reasoning requires language.
- Synaesthesia 10y agoI think there's it can't be denied that there is a strong link between cognition and language, since from introspection I feel that my thoughts are in language, and language certainly permits tremendous richness of expression of thought. Chomsky discusses these views here - I don't think this article repudiates them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH8SicnqSC4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH8SicnqSC4 I will agree with the author that, despite being not possessing language, animals are more intelligent and sensitive than frequently given credit.
- leephillips 10y ago"from introspection I feel that my thoughts are in language" Have you ever had the experience of having to stop in mid-sentence, stuck, because a word was "on the tip of your tongue"?
- toolslive 10y agoSome people think visually, and then suffer from the problem that the solution of the problem that they "see" is difficult to explain in words.
- tokenadult 10y agoYou mean the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is wrong. Which people like me (originally trained as a linguist) have been saying for years.
- bitL 10y agoMaybe that hypothesis is wrong when your brain is young and as it starts losing its elasticity, it becomes valid?
- WorldMaker 10y agoThe Strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis seems obviously deficient because you can certainly think about things your language has no words (concepts and feelings, etc). It's the Weak Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that is much more interesting and still at debate. Certainly things that are easier to describe in a language would seem easier to reason with. Our brains leverage language as a tool to map concepts and the concepts we can name are easier to grasp and utilize than the ones we cannot. The Weak hypothesis does seem like it would be affected by brain elasticity. Keeping concepts close to hand in your language would presumably keep them easier to conceptualize as your brain plasticizes.
- corecoder 10y agoWho does defend the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? I've never seen anybody defending it, while I've seen lots of people arguing against it; the first name that comes to mind is Steven Pinker.
- micimize 10y agoChomsky believes the human capacity for language to be one of many "mental organs" specialized to different tasks. This article is pretty confused, and Chomsky would probably say the root cause of the author's confusion is the ill defined terms "language" and "thought".
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]