Perspectives on Language and Thought: A Critique

Abstract

The present paper aims to highlight some of the major perspectives on the ongoing controversy between Language and Thought. It is acknowledged that the relationship between language and thought is deep. Both language and thought require an organization and order for storage and retrieval. Language puts order into thought and thought in turn enables the organization needed by the language. But what comes first: word or thought/idea/concept-cognition or language, and what role does language play in the organization of one’s thought or vice versa? Is language itself thought? How accurately does language represent human thought? How accurately does language represent the real world? It is difficult to spell out the relationship between language and thought. All these questions elude an answer and the present paper provides some perspectives to these questions.