A Writer's Notebook, Day Five-Hundred-And-Twenty-Seven
Very often, it is pointed out how language can easily evoke a mental response, even when we do not intend it. The classic example, of course, is "do not think of a pink elephant," or some equivalent. The point being that once the idea is put into the mind, it is impossible not to imagine it for a moment at least, if only for the purpose of parsing the language itself. This is true, of course, and quite important for anyone working with language, as should be apparent, but there is another side to this coin, one that is not as often mentioned, and certainly not as directly, and that is how words become inseparable from what they signify. I mean by this that an object evokes language just the way language evokes an object.
If you look around wherever you are and notice some object or other, you will find that the word or words for that object are already in your mind just from seeing it. Of course, if their is not a name for the object, it may be a color or shape, or some other attribute(s), and there is that strange sensation of knowing you are aware of a word for an object but not quite recalling it, where the object itself can feel a bit distanced, as though you cannot be certain of what it is until that word is recouped.
In a sense, our experiences with the real world are also experiences with language. I have discussed before the ways depriving deaf individuals with the resources to develop a full linguistic map limited their capacity for abstract thought, that not having the ability to use language fluidly left them incapable of achieving certain aspects of cognition that we take for granted. In essence, we understand our experience of the world within the map of language.
This shapes a great deal, of course, from the fact that gendered languages will ascribe properties to objects that become characteristics that native speakers accept as part of the object itself. In essence, the characteristics imbued in the word are part of the concept as it is seen, though it is not an inherent quality of the object. Our ability to differentiate colors is a result of language, with our psychological sense of where one color on the spectrum ends and the next begins largely a result of what words are available. Some cultures use fewer words, some more, with the result being that individuals recognize that number of colors. They can still see the differences, are not limited in perception, but they do not differentiate them in the same way, considering them as shades not individual units. This is a fairly, I'll admit, pedantic distinction to bring up, but my point is more about how language shapes our experience, about the intrinsic connection between our language and our interactions with the real world.
To me, language is not separate from what it references, in some sense. It is connected in both directions, and I recognize that language is a primary tool of the mind that makes it possible to think in many of the ways I take for granted. I see this as bestowing language with a great deal of power, and I often have to wonder how much of that potential we writers are truly aware of, let alone utilizing. This is one of the great challenges for me, and I feel that my awareness of these ideas is growing in ways that will be very fruitful, though I do not yet know where it is leading.
If you look around wherever you are and notice some object or other, you will find that the word or words for that object are already in your mind just from seeing it. Of course, if their is not a name for the object, it may be a color or shape, or some other attribute(s), and there is that strange sensation of knowing you are aware of a word for an object but not quite recalling it, where the object itself can feel a bit distanced, as though you cannot be certain of what it is until that word is recouped.
In a sense, our experiences with the real world are also experiences with language. I have discussed before the ways depriving deaf individuals with the resources to develop a full linguistic map limited their capacity for abstract thought, that not having the ability to use language fluidly left them incapable of achieving certain aspects of cognition that we take for granted. In essence, we understand our experience of the world within the map of language.
This shapes a great deal, of course, from the fact that gendered languages will ascribe properties to objects that become characteristics that native speakers accept as part of the object itself. In essence, the characteristics imbued in the word are part of the concept as it is seen, though it is not an inherent quality of the object. Our ability to differentiate colors is a result of language, with our psychological sense of where one color on the spectrum ends and the next begins largely a result of what words are available. Some cultures use fewer words, some more, with the result being that individuals recognize that number of colors. They can still see the differences, are not limited in perception, but they do not differentiate them in the same way, considering them as shades not individual units. This is a fairly, I'll admit, pedantic distinction to bring up, but my point is more about how language shapes our experience, about the intrinsic connection between our language and our interactions with the real world.
To me, language is not separate from what it references, in some sense. It is connected in both directions, and I recognize that language is a primary tool of the mind that makes it possible to think in many of the ways I take for granted. I see this as bestowing language with a great deal of power, and I often have to wonder how much of that potential we writers are truly aware of, let alone utilizing. This is one of the great challenges for me, and I feel that my awareness of these ideas is growing in ways that will be very fruitful, though I do not yet know where it is leading.
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