The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
by Steven Pinker
On the idea of mentalese.
Have you ever experienced the moment when you try to express certain feelings but fail to find the appropriate words in your language to describe it? Such moment must be a common experience among human beings because there are so many way to describe it such as “words are failing me”, “it is beyond my ability to describe it”, and “此时的语言是如此的苍白”, etc.
All those examples pointed to the idea of mentalese, also known as the language of thought hypothesis. It posits that human mind think and process in a unique language other than their mother tongue. No matter one speaks English, Chinese or French, his/her mind speaks a different language. When we try to recount what other’s saying, what we do is not in a verbatim manner, instead, our mind first interpret other’s words in its own way of thinking(mentalese), then translate the interpretation into whatever real-world language we are speaking. That’s why we normally don’t just repeat other’s saying word by word; that’s why we sometimes cannot express what we are thinking.
Notice that the verb I’m using is “translate”. The way I understand it is that anytime we express ourselves, it is a process of translation from our mentalese to English(Or Chinese, or other real-world languages). The better we trained ourselves in this process of translation (by constant writing and generalizing), the more fluent we are at expressing our true feelings, the less moment there will be of saying “words are failing me”.
To further widen this concept, let us think about the real world translation, such as translating Chinese from English. In the past I would’ve thought that it is simply reading the Chinese in mind and then translate Chinese into English. After equipped with the understanding of mentalese, I now see it as first translating Chinese into our mind language, then translating mind language into English. The whole process is changed from 2-way to 3-way translation.
Most people are fluent translators between their mentalese and their mother tongues. The translating experience can be so smooth that we hardly feel its presence. It appears only when we find certain moment inexpressible.
On Sapir–Whorf hypothesis and Universal Grammar
The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis states that language has an effect on your worldview as well. Pinker shows that it’s scientifically unsound. First of all, it’s not even properly researched by the amateur scientists who postulated; and, secondly, it doesn’t take into account many things, such as creoles and pidgins, or even deaf and mute people.
In Pinker’s opinion, it’s almost the other way around. For humans, language is something evolution naturally produced, since language-usage is inherent to the human nature.
Or, to put it in a even simpler term, it’s an instinct.
This means that we should stop considering language a skill – as we do, for example, writing. There are many societies which didn’t develop writing systems, but none which lacks a language.
Even more, children sometimes spontaneously invent their own language, and deaf babies tend to syntactically use their bodies.
In Pinker’s opinion, because, for some time during our development, language is an instinct much in the same way breathing is. After this critical childhood period, it seems that the language mechanism hardwired in our brain subsides. Possibly to make some space for other types of human endeavor.
However, if this is true – namely, if humans are language-speakers by default – then, why are there so many different languages? After all, we breathe and have sex in a similar manner.
This is because that there are many cultures and they have lasted for thousands and thousands of years. But even so, all languages share a basic structure.
Noam Chomsky named it universal grammar.
And in Steven Pinker’s opinion, it’s there inside your brain. And communication depends solely on it.
Key Takeaways from “The Language Instinct”
Language Is a Human Instinct
Language is a mystery. For example, it’s so complex that when you try to learn another language, you need several years to acquire its grammar. Then, how is a child able to learn it in just a year or two?
According to Steven Pinker, because his brain features a language-learning mechanism. And because language learning comes to it instinctually. Just like, say, breathing.
The Language-Learning Machinery Is Short-Timed
However, even though this instinct is universal – it’s not eternal.
In other words, there’s only a short critical period during childhood when children are able to use the language-learning mechanism. Afterward, it subsides and makes room for other brain tools.
This is the reason why sufficiently old feral children are unable to acquire human language, no matter how hard we try to teach them. The language-learning mechanism is not there.
Grammar Rules Are, Strictly Speaking, Irrelevant
This language-acquisition device inside your brain comes prepacked with universal grammar. Think of it as an empty puzzle, a framework – only for words. That’s why some sentences – such as “What did John meet a man who sold?” – are incomprehensible to you: the words just can’t seem to fit the puzzle in any way.
However, some others are pretty intelligible, even though some people tell you they are grammatically incorrect. Steven Pinker says: when a rule must be explicitly stated to be learned, then it can be ignored.
Because it’s irrelevant to actual communication. Which is what language is all about.