The statement “humans devise arbitrary symbols to reference empirical objects and ideas” is viable if by “humans” one considers the collective history and reality of the human experience as a whole, between human individuals that have existed, in the statement. While humans collectively devise arbitrary symbols to refer to their perceived world, individuals, especially those learning a language, are barred from impacting what symbols become used. Infants may devise their own viable languages to represent their experiences, but the socially-acceptable institutions of parenting and schooling function to correct a child if their perceived language contradicts an effective usage of whatever the infant’s native language happens to be. Individuals cannot change language, but collective humanity can.

In this way, language is an authoritarian entity of sorts. In order for a language to work, individuals must agree and adhere to the usage of certain, preconceived symbolic devices to refer to their experience. By the same token, individual inconsistencies must be discouraged socially (via parenting or schooling) so that linguistic consistency and communicative integrity is maintained between speakers of the same language. In communication between two human parties, the will of the individual is sacrificed to preserve the integrity of the implied third party of language.

Are there any limitations in this situation? Is it so bad that personal inconsistencies need to be ironed out for the integrity of language as a whole? The limitations of language itself, as well as its psychological impact on the parties learning and applying it, may influence an affirmative in the reader’s answer to these questions.

Language can be a limiting entity. In her post this week, Susan Su writes about the ambiguity one faces in the English dialect when trying to describe the entity of ‘love,’ which can at some point be used to describe social relationships, such as those between family members, friends, or lovers. In the context of each of the mentioned relationships, love has decidedly different connotations, which may be influenced by a relationship’s social roles or one’s personal feelings towards the relationship of reference. Su says it is because “[t]he word ‘love’ is so abstract” that such ambiguity arises when trying to nail down love’s specific connotations outside of differential social and personal experiences. The difficulty one finds when trying to represent “love” in terms of dialect itself is a limitation of the English language to convey clear symbolic reference outside of social and personal experience.

Language can also interfere with thought. In “Early Language Acquisition,” Patricia K. Kuhl describes the impact of neural commitment on youth learning a language by stating the “initial coding of native-language patterns eventually interferes with the learning of new patterns (such as those of a foreign language), because they do not conform to the established ‘mental filter.’” But the nature in which language limits thought may not always be merely interfering.

Language may impact the way individuals expressing it think. George Orwell has shown that language may be consciously used as an instrument to limit mentality and ideological conveyance. At the end of his influential novel “1984,” Orwell wrote an essay in which he describes the aftermath of the novel’s main story. In the essay, the story’s single authoritarian Party eventually imposes limitation in the ideology its ruled peoples can convey through connotation in dialect by imposing functional restraints in language. For example, the term “bad” and adjectives like “very” and “extremely” are eradicated to the extent that they are unintelligible and inconceivable in popular thought and dialect. Henceforth, something is only referred to as “minus good” or “double minus good”; nothing is ever referred to as “bad,” “very bad,” or “extremely bad.” In this way, the Party’s future populous cannot approach negative sentiment without the positive connotation inherent in usage of “good.” Sentiment and ordeals that rebel against Party ideals, as described in the novel’s main story, are thereby eradicated from intelligible communication.

What of these aspects of language use? Though language operates on authoritarian terms, does practical application and necessity supercede its negative potential? Is it possible to reconcile the authority-patron relationship between language and individuals forced to communicate by terms of language? Is such reconciliation necessary in light of language’s potential to ideologically-restrict its patrons’ communication and thought?

Is my phrasing of language’s role and characteristics inherently restricted by the cognitive limitations that my experience of English dialect conveyed in Edmonds, Washington has imposed on my thought?

sources:

Kuhl, Patricia K. “Early Language Acquisition: Cracking the Speech Code.” Nature Reviews:
Neuroscience: November 2004.

Orwell, George. “1984.” Signet Classics; Reissue edition: July 1, 1950.

Su, Susan. “Loglitterve --> Love (Taking the Glitter Out of Love).” Posted on Blackboard Academic Suite 18 Mar 2006.

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She took a sad song, made it better

And quit it with the big words. You're clever, we get it.

(Edited by chalkboard sonata at 2:13 pm on Mar. 20, 2006)

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Fucking for fear of not wanting to fear again.

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YOU HYPOCRITE MOTHERFUCKER.[b[/b][b][/b]

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There's no swearing censor anymore, by the way.

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Fucking for fear of not wanting to fear again.

NOT BULLSHIT. RYAN AND WORDS, SITTING IN A TREE, S-E-S-Q-U-I-P-E-D-A-L-I-Z-I-N-G.

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READ THE SAPIR-WHORF HYPOTHESIS.

And quit it with the big words. You're clever, we get it.

(Edited by chalkboard sonata at 2:13 pm on Mar. 20, 2006)

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I'm....flattered.

but this sub plot between you and Apotheosis is terrible intriguing.

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She took a sad song, made it better

But at what point is one's ideology a result of language?

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She took a sad song, made it better

EDIT:

(Edited by quidam at 11:03 pm on Mar. 20, 2006)

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Are you there, Margaret? It's me, God.

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We all know that Ryan's having an affair with words.

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Sorry to whore your spouse as such, Ryan. She's just so seductive.  

Been trying to get over that sex addiction y'know.

(Edited by ShAmAn at 8:31 pm on Mar. 20, 2006)

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She took a sad song, made it better

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And quit it with the big words. You're clever, we get it.

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Also note that he obviously ran his post through a word processor, hence the unusual quotation mark characters.

That said, in response to the idea that language is limiting, no, I don't believe that it is.  Words develop new shades of meaning depending on their context whether people consciously intend them too or not.  Make a language of only two words and it's still fundamentally possible to express anything with it as those two words can be arranged into an infinite number of permutations.  Language developed on it's own once; it can happen again, even if restrictions are imposed.  That's not to say that the structure of a language has no influence on thought, but there are far better ways to brainwash someone than that.

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Hallmark®: Your home for overpriced cardboard rectangles.