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In what language do deaf people think?

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Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#31

Post by Arun2009 »

est wrote: post #25

> Your speculations raise a larger question: Can you think without language? Answer: Nope, at least not at the level humans are accustomed to. Wait, I have a question: by thinking in language, does this mean, that, it's very common for people (in the English speaking world) to think like there was a background voice speaking in your head, like the thinking bubble scenes depicted in movies and sitcoms? As a Chinese, n…

> anyone else think in pictures

I have noticed that most of my thoughts originate as 'tendencies'. These tendencies are not verbal, but often vividly embody ideas. I then have to expend some effort to verbalize them. This is easily done for most of my thoughts (such as this one!), but for some, I find that the tendencies are not vivid enough or translating them effectively into words is beyond my current abilities.

I can get rid of the verbalizing stage altogether, which is what I would do when I automatically reason about where the center of gravity of a spoon I hold in my hand is.

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#32

Post by epochwolf »

est wrote: post #25

> Your speculations raise a larger question: Can you think without language? Answer: Nope, at least not at the level humans are accustomed to. Wait, I have a question: by thinking in language, does this mean, that, it's very common for people (in the English speaking world) to think like there was a background voice speaking in your head, like the thinking bubble scenes depicted in movies and sitcoms? As a Chinese, n…

I think in written english. For me written english and spoken english are separate languages. I have extreme difficulty translating english words into their spoken equivalents. The reverse is easier only because I have far more practice with it. I have to memorize the spoken words that associate with the sounds. (Part of this may be because written english has a dozen possible sounds for each letter combination)

This is horrible obvious when I try to work with numbers. I've never worked with math higher than two digits in spoken language. In order for me to do any more complex math I first need to translate the spoken numbers into written form. Translating between written and spoken forms is painful for me. It can take me two or three seconds per character to comprehend spelling, phone numbers, or math. Writing down a phone number is almost impossible unless one of the parts is one I have memorize. 414, 920, and 644 are numbers I can instantly convert between their written or spoken forms because they are parts of numbers I've memorized. It is frustrating for me because no one I've encountered seems to have this issue and therefore I'm a special kind of moron for not being able to keep up.

The only reason this hasn't caused me horrible problems in life is I'm able to memorize enough to compensate.

> And our brain is faster and more optimized at processing mass volume visual stuff(especially pattern recognition), does anyone else think in pictures?

I'm pretty sure I think at one level of abstract above imagery most of the time. I'm currently reading through Lord of the Rings and I'm finding myself not thinking in imagery at all but simply absorbing information and forming mental maps of the terrain instead of experiencing it visually. Some of it is definitely Tolken's writing style, it readily lends itself to abstraction in my mind.

When reading Lord of the Rings, I force myself to experience it at a lower level of abstraction. At a lower abstraction my brain has to work much harder to form original imagery (not just dropping in stuff from the movies) and my reading drops to a fifth of my normal speed. The experience is much richer and well worth it.

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#33

Post by s-phi-nl »

10ren wrote: post #10

Communities evolve language spontaneously. Evidence of this is a school of deaf children (in Brazil IIRC) who were not taught sign language (due to lack of a teacher, due to budget). They developed their own, which became quite complex and of comparable sophistication to other human languages. Taken with the conclusion of the submission that abstract thought requires language for its development, this leads us to the…

A similar thing happened in the al-Sayyid Bedouin tribe in southern Israel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Sayyid_Bedouin_Sign_Language.

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#34

Post by Qz »

est wrote: post #25

> Your speculations raise a larger question: Can you think without language? Answer: Nope, at least not at the level humans are accustomed to. Wait, I have a question: by thinking in language, does this mean, that, it's very common for people (in the English speaking world) to think like there was a background voice speaking in your head, like the thinking bubble scenes depicted in movies and sitcoms? As a Chinese, n…

I'm not sure that English-speaking (and similar languages) people think in a background voice, but rather that we think in meaning and the meaning is echoed back in the mind as English words (or whatever language). For example, there's a lot of times where we will have something that we want to communicate, and we know exactly what it means but not how to say it in words -- often associated with the phrase "something on the tip of my tongue".

Reading also can take on something of that ideographic nature of chinese -- take the word calligraphy. I don't need to read the letters and then put them in order and deduce that the word is 'calligraphy'. I see the whole shape of the word and comprehend it. Thisisalsowhyitssomuchahardertounderstandenglishwhenwedon'tputspacesbetweenwords.

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#35

Post by Jun8 »

Straight Dope's answers are often quite illuminating but on this one they've really dropped the ball. First, consider the statement "I think in English, because that's what I speak." This is an extremely naive view of, what is to linguists, philosophers, cognitive scientists, etc., a huge enigma, or actually two:

1. Is our thought process based on language, i.e. does it use syntactical transformations that are characteristics of language. Note that introspective evidence immediately reveals that at least part of our thinking are in images. This type of thinking is clearly now linguistic. So, let's limit the question to the other modes of thinking, e.g. reasoning.

2. If the answer to (1) is affirmative, then in what language do we think? Is it our native language? What if we have two native language? What happens for deaf people? If we think in our native tongue, then how strong an influence does it exert on our thought process (i.e. was Whorf right?)

AFAIK, (1) is now accepted by most philosophy of language people. (2), however, is a matter of some debate. Some people, like Fodor, claim that we think in an innate language. This position is hard to defend for various reasons. With the recent rise of linguistic relativism (suppressed for about thirty years by Chomsky and his followers) more and more researchers are delving into the question of language of thought and the effect it has on our cognitive processes.

For an excellent introductory survey on the philosophical issues, see Murat Aydede's article (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/language-thought/). If your cup of tea is more along the lines of cognitive psychology/linguistics, check out Lera Broditsky's work (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lera_Boroditsky)

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#36

Post by ph0rque »

Jun8 wrote: post #35

Straight Dope's answers are often quite illuminating but on this one they've really dropped the ball. First, consider the statement "I think in English, because that's what I speak." This is an extremely naive view of, what is to linguists, philosophers, cognitive scientists, etc., a huge enigma, or actually two: 1. Is our thought process based on language, i.e. does it use syntactical transformations that are charac…

My native language is Russian. I learned English when we emigrated to US, at which point I was 9 years old. I also learned German as an exchange student when I was 17.

I can say that somewhere along my language learning experience (before I learned German), I learned to abstract my thoughts to ideas, then 'implement' them to whatever language I needed to speak at the moment.

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#37

Post by est »

epochwolf wrote: post #32
est wrote: post #25

> Your speculations raise a larger question: Can you think without language? Answer: Nope, at least not at the level humans are accustomed to. Wait, I have a question: by thinking in language, does this mean, that, it's very common for people (in the English speaking world) to think like there was a background voice speaking in your head, like the thinking bubble scenes depicted in movies and sitcoms? As a Chinese, n…

I think in written english. For me written english and spoken english are separate languages. I have extreme difficulty translating english words into their spoken equivalents. The reverse is easier only because I have far more practice with it. I have to memorize the spoken words that associate with the sounds. (Part of this may be because written english has a dozen possible sounds for each letter combination) This…

Just curious, are you also a non-native speaker? Or from a Chinese language background?

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#38

Post by Jun8 »

ph0rque wrote: post #36
Jun8 wrote: post #35

Straight Dope's answers are often quite illuminating but on this one they've really dropped the ball. First, consider the statement "I think in English, because that's what I speak." This is an extremely naive view of, what is to linguists, philosophers, cognitive scientists, etc., a huge enigma, or actually two: 1. Is our thought process based on language, i.e. does it use syntactical transformations that are charac…

My native language is Russian. I learned English when we emigrated to US, at which point I was 9 years old. I also learned German as an exchange student when I was 17. I can say that somewhere along my language learning experience (before I learned German), I learned to abstract my thoughts to ideas, then 'implement' them to whatever language I needed to speak at the moment.

Think about one of your "abstract" thoughts: What language are they in :-)

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#40

Post by alan-crowe »

tkahn6 wrote: post #3

I've also often wondered if the language one thinks in has any effect on cognition or the "efficiency" of thought (if that even makes sense).

I've tried, briefly, to firm-up the idea in "Sapir-Whorf meets coding theory" http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/10/8848/5161
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