In a Different Language

About a month and a half a go I started teaching English classes at the YMCA to adults and children in my spare time. I also found myself teaching English to a few friends and after a few months of observation, I am coming to realize that language is not just a different syntax for communication but also as a way of thinking.

We are intrinsically bound to the language we use when communicate when we speak or write. The language we use actually controls how we present information and thus also the way we speak. Long story short, the language we use provides the framework for how we think!

Take for example the way I am communicating to you right now. You might not realize it, but there is a flow of information that exists between the text and you as a reader. As you read, your mind subconsciously expects a certain pattern of how information is presented. If that flow is broken then the information you read becomes fragmented or disjointed. This is something that many native speakers take for granted.

Suppose that the flow of information is broken. Suppose that a foreign tourist was speaking to you and they said something like "park walk go tomorrow." This sentence is disjointed, is it not? The key elements of the sentence are there and after quick thought you would be able to understand that this person is saying something to the effect of "go for a walk at the park tomorrow." In understanding flow we understand how information should be organized to make it easily understandable to the person that you are communicating with. With out that organization that information has to be reordered for it to make sense. Modifiers must be applied to the correct nouns, actions, states or events to make sense just like in the corrected sentence I provided above.

What do I mean by applying modifiers? Try looking at math, probably the most universal language out there. If I were to write the following

2 + 3 = 5

you would understand what is going on. The equation above is telling you something. The equation is saying that the sum of 2 and 3 is 5. The numbers being the objects and the '+' and the '=' signs being the operators that act on the pieces of information we provide. Let's take a closer look at this example. When I said "2 and 3 is 5" this is happening in your mind: the term "2 and 3," the operator and telling your mind to group the numbers 2, 3 (I'm trying not to use the word "and" there) together as a single term; the 'is' term is telling your mind that an equality is happening, that "2 and 3" = 5. If I were to tell you that "Billy and Joe are boys" your mind does this: "Billy + Joe" = Boys. Which is quite similar.

When we communicate information, we are doing the exactly the same thing in math-- that is we operate on information using verbs or actions to develop relationships. Now, let's move on to our next point.

When communicating it is best to understand the fundamentals of communication from the receiver’s point of view. What is happening when we listen or read, we are acquiring information serially (in sequence) and this is important to understand because this is the way we interpret information. If that sequence is out of order we are thrown for a loop. There is a reason for this, because it is the way that a language governs the way we think.

Why is it that I stress the term "the way we think"?

Let's start with this, this essay that you are now reading.

"To understand what a real essay is, we have to reach back into history again, though this time not so far. To Michel de Montaigne, who in 1580 published a book of what he called "essais." He was doing something quite different from what lawyers do, and the difference is embodied in the name. Essayer is the French verb meaning "to try" and an essai is an attempt. An essay is something you write to try to figure something out."

--The Age of the Essay, Paul Graham (bold emphasis, mine)

Let's put this into perspective. Think of this essay from the writer's point of view-- as in me as I am sitting in front of my computer typing this essay. You might take the material you are reading for granted at the moment, but for me, this essay is appearing right in front of my eyes; I am watching the cursor move across the screen as I am typing this essay; nothing that I am writing is scripted, every word I am typing isn't planned. What I am doing is thinking while I am writing and by writing, I am using language as a framework to think.

Let's take a closer look at this. Every sentence I write, follows a certain syntax (grammatical rule); the word that precedes next is dictated by what I write before it. Suppose that I said, "I'm going to..." and paused there. What are you thinking? You're waiting for the next word that is going to make sense for the previous statement. "You're going to.... what???" This is what you should be thinking and also that should exactly be what I should be thinking too. The next word that comes out of me can only be something that makes sense in that context. The only terms that would make sense could be "take a walk,""go for dinner" or say "pass my test," but what I said before controls what I think to say next and this is what I mean by language governs the way we think.

When we speak or write we don't usually have an exact picture of what exactly we are going to say. Suppose that my computer crashed right now, I'd lose this essay but if I were to rewrite it, the words I use would be different but the contents of the ideas would remain the same. The way I think and how I write is dictated by the language I use. As I write, information is being drawn out of me, in a way that makes sense governed by rules of the language.

The implications of this result is interesting, because right now I am learning a new language and with a new language, comes a different way of thought. How do you express something for which you do not have the words? Without the words, some thoughts cannot exist in different languages; the ideas are lost in translation (but this is a bit of a tangent). What is realized is that in different languages, the thought processes occur differently and in order to properly communicate in a certain language we too must also learn to think in that language.

I have realized this much through my studies of the Japanese language. I started off with trying to learn Japanese by memorizing grammar, but that was painful and didn't help me much. What I realize now is to understand how these people present information and learn to think in their language in to improve my proficiency. By understanding how they perceive information, then without thinking I will know what to say next. This is flow and it is no surprise that the word "fluent" is a derivative of "flow."