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In what language do deaf people think?

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Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#71

Post by villa1n23 »

Jun8 wrote: post #69
axod wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they need to be in a language? You could represent everything as images/video sequences.

At least some has to be in a linguistic representation (check the Aydede article I linked above, it's interesting). Why? Because (i) You cannot represent everything using images, e.g. "brother", "justice", "tesseract", but more importantly (ii) it is impossible for image representations to support complex syntactic manipulations necessary for reasoning. As a very simple example, think about the syllogism that starts…

This answer seems to be Begging the Question.

You can represent brother and justice, via imagery, but what you would be doing is using a token example, comparing and creating a type out of the two situations. Now communicating that idea without a linguistic representation would be near impossible(I can't imagine an easy way) but to apprehend it without a linguistic layer is possible. (ii) It could just be my own misunderstanding of what is being said, but does having a visual representation system, mean that symbols cannot be manipulated to interact, or does that by definition make them a language? Is this a functional definition we are working with?

As well, with words like "every" "the" "a" it sounds like these things are objects to you, and not emergent connectors inherent in a linguistic system, they exist by virtue of the language existing. A visual system may not have need for such conventions. Many of these questions or examples assume an almost external objective (at least thats my interpretation) existence of linguistics, but this is coming from a linguistic mind, and assumes the necessary existence of it.( hence my begging question comment at the beggining).

I held much the same view, until I experienced ineffable idea's and concepts in non linguistic form. Anecdotally, one can try salvia or dimethyltryptamine and gain the qualia experience of a thinking or experience without linguistics.

Good points, but I feel Impossible is too strong a conclusion based on whats been said. :)

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#72

Post by ph0rque »

Jun8 wrote: post #38
ph0rque wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :-)

Equations :-). But seriously, I think of e.g. freedom as that feeling you get when you're on a tropical island with the wind blowing through your hair. Much more interesting than thinking of "freedom" or "Freiheit" or "свобода".

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#73

Post by pbhjpbhj »

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #64
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, that in itself is interesting to me - that you found it hard to parse that sentence because of a misspelling. To me it seemed easy to understand: I think the internal process is that as I read I'm speaking internally to myself and so hear¹ the phonic reproduction, homophones don't matter then, the meaning is clear as in that context "rather course" the path/progression/learning-period meaning of course is nonsen…

Curious. I don't read "out loud, but silently" (if you see what I mean). I don't hear the words in my head as I read. I trained myself at age 8 or 9 to read very, very fast by not "sounding out" things in my head. Net result is that I get confused quickly by misspellings. Then I need to backtrack and read things "out loud" while trying not to see what's there. Which is tricky.

It's not sounding out as if I read aloud it's definitely much faster but it's also a phonic process to some extent. Scanning is less phonic in that no single words get sounded but somewhere there is a subconscious process still make phonic analysis I think - I can scan your comment for example and tell someone it's meaning but not the words you used.

Were you an early reader? I read at age 11 when I was 6 (although formal reading ages weren't assigned then).

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#74

Post by pbhjpbhj »

ph0rque wrote: post #72
Jun8 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Equations :-). But seriously, I think of e.g. freedom as that feeling you get when you're on a tropical island with the wind blowing through your hair. Much more interesting than thinking of "freedom" or "Freiheit" or "свобода".

>I think of e.g. freedom as that feeling you get when you're on a tropical island with the wind blowing through your hair.

Really? How do you then differentiate freedom internally from the literal feeling you are using as a metaphor for it or say from an idea like "tropical breeze"? What's your internal token for "tropical breeze"?

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#75

Post by est »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #58
todayiamme wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At times I think in ways harder to define than just pictures. I see things somehow and yet I cannot explain them in words. I can just feel the relationships between concepts and see how they fit together, but I cannot express it. The truth is that we all think in an undefinable mental language and our common language is an abstraction of that layer. I remember this interesting experiment that I read about in Steven P…

>The truth is that we all think in an undefinable mental language and our common language is an abstraction of that layer. That's a very big assertion without substantial experimental backing - care to provide some? Even just defining "think" sounds hard to me.

> Even just defining "think" sounds hard to me.

Well, to 'think' in the OP's article context means to think about. Think about fish, it swims, think about cars, it moves. The replies are more about 'information processing' and 'innovative reasoning'. So people often can not find the correct word for an abstract idea. The human brain stores a huge namespace of world view and knowledge, sometimes the natural languages are not enough to decode and describe its complexity.

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#76

Post by pbhjpbhj »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #13

My aunt was a deaf-mute (That's what she called herself. I have no idea if the term is pejorative) Her husband, my uncle, was blind. So she would sign things that he couldn't see, and he would yell at her and she couldn't hear them. Made for a great marriage. (Joking aside, it was really interesting to watch them communicate. He would hold her hands while she "spoke" Then she would hold his hands -- so he knew she wa…

I heard a fascinating interview on BBC Radio 4's "Woman's Hour" show with a deaf lady who described how her Father, in their all deaf family, would take great delight in ushering them all into the shower (not on) and shouting as loud as he could so they could feel the vibrations echoing back off the tiled walls. The [hearing] neighbours apparently weren't friendly toward them, can't imagine why.

They'd also use floorboard telegraphy, hammer on the floorboards to see if anyone is in the house, they hammer back if they feel it.

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#77

Post by est »

colah wrote: post #55
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…

Speaking in your head is called subvocalization ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocalization ) and many forms of speed reading get the learner to eliminate it. Subvocalization has several draw backs. One is that it is very bad at multitasking (eg. try reading this comment while counting). It turns out that when you are subvocalizing, you send tiny impulses to your throat as though you are speaking, just not strong…

Subvocalization is and interesting idea, but it's more about how to encoding information into your brain, how about the decoding process? For instance when you write an English essay can you finish it without a speaking voice in your head?

And oh yes, we all think in formulas when doing mathematics. I have problem vocalizing formulas with Greek letters to others but I can quickly write them down. I think it's because Greek letters were never officially taught in China.

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#78

Post by pbhjpbhj »

philwelch wrote: post #68
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Thisisalsowhyitssomuchahardertounderstandenglishwhenwedon'tputspacesbetweenwords. I've got to say I scanned over that as quickly as the rest of the para and had no problem understanding it. Indeed it's hard not to see the word patterns. This sort of thing gets tricky when you remove the vowels or when there are collisions at word boundaries (expertsexchange, etc.).

Tokenizing provdies btetre erorr corretcion in case words are misspelled. I very highly doubt that tihsprhsaesicmorephesnilbe.

>I very highly doubt that tihsprhsaesicmorephesnilbe.

I read it first as "this phrase is _more_ comprehensible" but knew it wasn't right.

Also you spelt "mispelled" incorrectly ;0)>

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#79

Post by est »

awongh wrote: post #52
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…

actually, AFAIK, all the studies I've seen about english say that when you read, what you're looking at is the shape and pattern of the word, not it's representation as a string of symbols pasted together. (this is why you can read things that are misspelled and not notice that there are mistakes- your brain thinks that the shape of the linked letters looks close enough and is interpreted as being the actual word...…

> Maybe that system is just more prevalent in the asian education system.

Sadly the modern Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese are choosing an alphabetical system rather than Chinese characters. The one and only civilization today still using logograms is China.

Re: In what language do deaf people think?

#80

Post by pbhjpbhj »

I've mentioned this here before but when formally learning German language for the first time I'd often recall BSL signs (or French words equally) instead of the correct Deutsch word. This indicates to me that the same internal token was indexing all my foreign language words including the signs.

Occasionally I'll think with a sign just as occasionally I'll drop in a foreign language word into internal speech.

My youngest at 16mo is getting quite a few signs now (and has a couple of recognisable utterances - "dake" (his bro's name in modified form), "what-this", "cheers"(!)). He's pre-vocal but he can express quite a few things and he can attempt to manipulate us using mock cries. This last point to me means he's thinking about what he wants to acquire (chocolate, ice-cream, whatever someone else is eating!). He also makes responses to signals that he's going to defecate and asks for his potty (sometimes, he's just managing to do this now) - again this seems to be relatively complex thought.

It would be interesting to me to see if his brain pattern indicates, to those doing the research, a pattern similar to a sign language user or not?

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