Language

Do we think in our native language? Can we speak German but think French? My French friend insists that we cannot as his native language is French yet when he speaks English he thinks in English and vice-versa.

Comments

There are actually three questions (at least) here: Do we think in a natural language? Is there a special role that our native language plays in our thought? Can more than one language play that role for a person?

The first question is the basis of a major controversy in the foundations of cognitive science. Some argue that at the most fundamental level, all thought is conducted in an innate "language of thought" that the brain is wired to use. On this view, when you experience yourself thinking in French, the French is reprsensted in the language of thought, and the real thinking is going on in the LOT, not in the French.

As I say, this view is controversial. Some critics of this view think that even though there is a level of thought more fundamental than that of which one is aware when one introspects and finds thoughts in one's natural language, that that thought is not in any language at all, but rather a form of cognition that cannot be expressed linguistically. Others argue that one only learns to think when one learns one's native language, since one needs a natural language as a vehicle of thought. There is a vast literature in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science on this matter.

The second question is complex as well. Many who reject the LOT hypothesis would argue that one's native language has a special role in shaping the conceptual categories in which one thinks, the salient properties one can ascribe to things, etc... Others argue that all language are intertranslatable, and that it doesn't matter what language one learns first.

Wirth regard to the third, some think multilingual individuals don't think any differently in their native language than they do in other languages. Others present evidence that at least some multilingual individuals think about different domains in different langauges, and that when they try to take a language into a domain in which they ordinarily think in the other, weird stuff happens. The experimental jury is still out on this one.

Read another response by Jay L. Garfield

Read another response about Language