The Possible Relationship Between Language & Thought (AQA GCSE Psychology)

Language & Thought

• Language could be defined as a 'code in which spoken sound is used to encode meaning’ (Barrett, 1999)

• Language enables human beings to form mental representations of the world: both abstract (e.g. ‘freedom’) and concrete (e.g. ‘cat’)

  • In short it gives a ‘shape’ to what humans see, hear, smell, touch and taste in the world they inhabit

• Language depends on both innate and learned influences:

  • Each person has an idiolect which develops and is modified throughout their lifetime and which is the result of both biological and environmental influences

• Thought could be defined as ‘the action or process of thinking’ (Oxford Languages, 2024)

• Thought enables humans to imagine, create and extend existing ideas about the world they inhabit as well as worlds which do not even exist

• Language and thought probably have a bi-directional relationship:

  • Each may depend on and be influenced by the other (try coming up with one word without having to use thought to do so and then try thinking of something without having the language to understand what you are thinking of!

• Language and thought may have an interdependent relationship:

  • Each is a separate entity but they both interact with each other to produce ideas, feelings, speech etc.

Language and Thought Diagram

Language and thought: a mutually beneficial relationship.