?How does language allow self-reflection? There are two selves of the self; the spontaneous self is their acting impulsively in response to needs and desires regardless of concern. The other self is the socially conscious self, which monitors and moderates the impulses from the spontaneous self. For example, during a mental argument the spontaneous self may want to retrieve (property) goods without purchasing, but the socially conscious self may censor the spontaneous self by reminding themselves that doing so is illegal. It’s like having an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other.
This self-reflection allows us to monitor our communication, so that we (our two selves) can remind ourselves in conversation that people of other cultures may have different values. Also it helps us to achieve the appearance we project of ourselves by modifying our speech and behavior to the situation. How does language organize perceptions? The way we organize experiences effects what they mean to us. When you put someone into the category of family or friend, an insult becomes playful teasing, but when an enemy or stranger says the same insult it is extremely offensive.
We can use this organizational quality to go beyond specific experiences and simplify them to be seen as abstract thoughts. This simplification and organization can twist our thoughts through stereotyping. Stereotyping attaches individuals and experiences into a crowd that emphasizes a mutual characteristic but, it can often ignore the dissimilarities within the crowd. Evidently, we have to take a broad view at phenomena to function regularly but it’s important to reflect on our stereotypes to recognize the differences between phenomena. How does language allow hypothetical thought? How do you think you will do in this semester?
The Essay on Language and Thought 2
Two claims about the impact of language on thinking: 1) Vygotsky: Once acquired, language alters the way that children think 2) Whorf: The particular language that children acquire alters the way that they think Piaget (1923) ‘The Language and Thought of the Child’ • Piaget observed what he called ‘egocentric’ speech: young children speak out loud in the presence of others but do not direct their ...
Where do you see yourself after graduation? What can you see yourself achieving after graduation? When answering these questions you must think hypothetically or outside the box. Using symbols helps us to think hypothetically because we can label ideas and capture them in our minds and then we can reflect on them. We can apply our past experiences to our present situation and plan out potential futures. Words have no basic connection to what they represent. We could substitute other symbols to represent the same phenomena. The meaning of a word is a collective construction by members of a group.
This allows for the meaning of words to shift over time or even be newly generated. For example, the term “googling” never existed until free search engines were created and became publicly acceptable among all internet users as a verb that means searching for info, like data, stats, and facts. Many words can have different implications for different groups of people. For example, the implication of a word for a specific group of people is considered socially acceptable for all members of the group but unacceptable in other groups. Also, you might have words that have specific or a special implication for only your family and friends.
As our words and symbols continue to move away from an independent reality, the potential for confusion is very huge. For example, overgeneralization is intentionally used for extreme perfection. We can reduce the existence of these kinds of mistakes by using more specific language. Ultimately the connection between language and perception seems to be very complicated because it is so broad and so specific. The only thing that comes to mind is basically how people decide to comprehend the language from a group and the way people communicate their perception back to a group.
