SHAFAQNA- A Professor of Psychology at Harvard University believes that language is regarded as a window to the human mind.
Steven Pinker, the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, has been studying language for more than four decades. He believes that language is regarded as a window to the human mind. According to him, language is a trait that differentiates humans from other species most noticeably.
Ideas are shared through coordinated hisses, grunts, and squeaks. Pinker illustrates that language is not writing. While all cultures have language but all of them have not transcribed it. Likewise, language is not thought, exactly. Babies can think and communicate without speech. Besides, many of us regularly think in visuals, not in words written on a mental chalkboard.
What language reveals about our mind
What language reveals about our mind is that first, we mostly remember in gists and abstractions. Second, it displays the considerable capacity of human long-term memory. And third, language shows the human mind’s near-infinite creativity.
Pinker indicated that when we know a language, we haven’t just memorized a very long list of sentences; rather, we have internalized a grammar or algorithm or recipe for combining elements into the newest assemblies. This internalized algorithm may exist in the mind from birth, though the idea is controversial. The chief architect behind the theory is Noam Chomsky, the influential linguist.
Pinker concluded that language is a miracle of the natural world, as it allows us to exchange an unlimited number of ideas by means of a bounded set of mental tools. Those mental tools consist of a large lexicon of memorized words and a powerful mental grammar which can combine them.
Source: Bigthink
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