How does language influence our thinking?

If the tenets of the NsLLT are accurately depicting the levels of learning, then language represents our thinking once we have acquired sufficient language. But, what is a sufficient level of language? Prior to possessing a complete grammar, learners use a lot of language such as “mama go,” “my goat ate the dandelions,” “this is my toy,” “I am angry.” “These are my students.” These simple sets of utterances, even sentences, are assigned meaning by the listener or what the philosophy of language literature calls “the hearer.” For example, the child says, “This is my toy.” And the parent who is the hearer says, “ No, the toy belongs to the daycare.” The child emphatically says, “No, my toy!” Perhaps the child meant that the child was playing with the toy so instead of “This is my toy” meaning the toy belonged to the child, the child was really saying, “I like playing with this toy so I am going to go play some more with this toy.” Wow, there are several relationships here—toy to child, toy to play, toy to more time by the child with the toy. Using a pro-social lens, the parent could say, “Yes, I see you are playing with a toy.” When the parent and child begin to leave, the parent adds, “ We will leave this toy here so that the next time we come to day care the toy will be here and then you can play with the toy again.” If the parent or hearer must interpret the meaning of the utterances, then the thinking of the hearer determines the meaning of the language.

If the hearer determines the meaning of the language, then the hearer’s level of thinking is influencing the meaning. In the previous example, the assignment of meaning by the parent could be about who owns the toy or it could be about who plays with the toy. The parent really doesn’t know what the intent of the child’s utterance meant until the child has more language. But more language also shows that the child’s thinking has also grown. By age 7-8 years of age, many children have a full grammar sufficiently capable of expressing meaning not only about themselves by also showing that they think about others. Examples of shared communicative thought sounds like this, “My mom wanted me to take some protein in my lunch so I get enough protein. But we couldn’t find any protein. So, she took me to the store to buy a protein bar.” “The neighbor has been told by the city to fix his sewer line but they just had a baby and I am sure this is a hardship for them so we will just wait until he can afford to fix it then we will be able to fix our line.” “Tariffs on goods mean higher prices for those of us who buy those goods as increasing the price of goods is usually passed off to the consumers of such goods.” “My friend is in the hospital, I wonder who is taking care of her cat. I think I will check with the family to see if I can help care for the cat.” “My students have different cultural backgrounds and therefore different, unique brains, so it is important that I provide them with equity of access to learning by setting up assignments that allow them to show what each of them learned.”

The neural scaffolding of meaning in a pro-social spiral allows for positive meaning to deepen resulting in pro-social thinking being expressed. On the other hand, negative restricted thinking of blaming others, disrespecting others, bullying others through name calling, and laughing at individual’s unique needs or ideas results in restricted language that is anti-social in nature. Such restricted language function spirals downward. Adult anti-social language might sound like this. “They are idiots. You know what I mean. They are all idiots. They just try to make me the bad guy. The beautiful people like me like me. You know we are all beautiful people. “ This type of language requires hearers to assign meaning based not on content but on emotion and on the hearer’s own past experiences.

So, when does a person have enough language to converse with another person about ideas that are content driven? The answer lies not in how many words or sentence structures but in how well does the language represent thinking, not only about themselves (3-7 year old language) but about others, others’ needs (7-11 year old language) that can eventually be deepened through more language about their thinking to symbolize events (15 plus age). This latter level is needed to discuss the findings of abstract thought such as a doctor explaining a new virus and how vaccines work while the hearers are able to connect the doctor’s explanation to their need to vaccinate. Or this abstract level of thinking allows a person to see how to set up city wide standards for houseless individuals based on the successes of other communities applied to the needs of those in that city. The examples go on and on. Societal networks depend on the leadership of such symbolic thinkers.

I personally believe that language functions to represent the refinement of conceptualization across our lifespan. We are always thinking. We are always learning. But at what level? And, are there barriers to such learning? Well, if advanced language requires advanced thinking, then we might also need to examine whether or not we are challenging students to think, to ask questions. I welcome my readers to look at an article by Alfie Kohn https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/curiosity/ then get back to me with questions, comments,