Language and thought language and thought interact in

Language and thought language and thought interact in many significant ways. The connection between language and thought is profound. 'universals'—the ways in which all languages are similar 'particulars' —the ways in which each individual language, or type of language, is special, even unique.

Language and thought • Evidences in psycholinguistics have shown that thought can exist without the presence of language. What this means is that language cannot be equated to thought. In addition, language is neutral to the thought which it conveys, it is merely a medium for transporting thought from one person to another, or as a tool for organizing and manipulating our rational thought.

Jean Piaget-Swiss child psychologist. He distinguishes the language and thought processes of children from adults as he develops an influential theory of child development. Piaget has shown that thought has an upper hand over language.

Piaget on language and thought • Piaget believed that cognitive development led to the growth of language • It is concerned with children, rather than all learners. • It focuses on development, rather than learning per se, so it does not address learning of information or specific behaviors.

Lev Vygotsky

Vygotsky’s Views on languge and thought • Social interaction is the basis of cognition • community plays a central role in the process of "making meaning. “ • developed a sociocultural approach to cognitive development. • Vygotsky viewed language as developing thought. • thought and language are initially separate systems from the beginning of life, merging at around three years of age. • Adult guidance is referred to as scaffolding

Vygotsky’s Views on language and thought • Vygotsky refers to tools of intellectual adaptation - these allow children to use the basic mental functions more effectively/adaptively, and these are culturally determined (e. g. , memory mnemonics, mind maps). • He concluded that language and thought are mutually dependent.

Noam Chomsky

Chomsky’s views on language and thought • Chomsky considers language as one aspect of cognition. • Chomsky's theory states that a number of cognitive systems exist, which seem to possess distinct specific properties. • These cognitive systems lay the groundwork for cognitive capacities, like language faculty

Chomsky’s views on language and thought • We are all born with an innate knowledge of grammar that serves as the basis for all language acquisition. • for humans, language is a basic instinct. • According to Chomsky language and thought are mutually complimentary. • Proposed ideas like I-language and e-language

I-language and E-language • I-language is a state of an internal computational system with which humans are born. • E-languages are the purported external social objects we refer to when we talk about English, Spanish, Italian etc.

Chomsky on language “ A human language is a system of remarkable complexity. To come to know a human language would be an extraordinary intellectual achievement for a creature not specifically designed to accomplish this task. A normal child acquires this knowledge on relatively slight exposure and without specific training”.