Language and Thought: An Approach

The 430-page book was published by Hanoi National University Publishing House in the fourth quarter of 2013. (Photo: Thanh Long)

This monograph, as the title suggests, starts from the idea that language and thinking are the most important, essential and core relationship of all linguistic theories from the past to the present. This is because this relationship covers all elements of the language system and all events of linguistic activities. Moreover, it is the core because only by solving these relationships can we have the basis to see a series of other problems on different levels of linguistics from structure to semantics and pragmatics. Recently, many problems of applied linguistics (Linguistic semiotics, Language education, Language information services, etc.) in their approaches have not escaped the orbit of this problem.

However, because it is a fundamental and core issue, language and thinking are also very difficult, very complex issues, with many solutions, many approaches, and clearly not easy to dissect, analyze laws and phenomena systematically and completely. Our work is only a small participation in this vast horizon.

Professor, People's Teacher Dinh Van Duc is the former head of the Department of Linguistics.

Linguistic reasoning on this problem is the beginning, at least from the Greeks until now, from logic, or from formalism to semantics, no linguist, in fact, does not pay attention to this relationship because everyone has to establish his own position before solving other specific problems.

In the early 20th century, F. de Saussure put forward many very important theories, but ultimately behind his most important views on linguistic theory is still the relationship between language and thinking, with a central issue being the position of native speakers in using the symbol system. This issue is also a fundamental issue in N. Chomsky's later theory. As the greatest linguist of the 20th century, N. Chomsky, as a thorough formalist linguist, never left the relationship between language and thinking through his key theories such as: universal grammar and specific grammar, linguistic competence and poetics (in language acquisition), language and consciousness, domination and constraint, the theory of minimalism, etc.

As for us, the authors of this monograph, we have been interested in this issue since we studied linguistic theory, especially from the graduate linguistics program. However, it is not possible to identify this issue systematically in a day or two, but it takes a long journey with practical experiences in linguistics and Vietnamese linguistics. From the initial thinking, we tried to find an approach to come to the first lectures on this issue at the undergraduate level (Class of students K.27) in the 1986-1987 school year, which is more than a quarter of a century to date. After that, we raised this issue to the topic "Language and Thinking" for the first graduate class (1997). During that process, we ourselves had many changes in perception, added additional factors and our own approaches. And today's thesis is based on many years of lectures that we have conducted and through exchanges and discussions in seminars with colleagues, students and graduate students as well as researchers.

Looking back, in preparation for this work, there was also a lucky coincidence: during the years (1974-1978) studying for a PhD in Linguistics in the Soviet Union, I met my supervisor, a great expert in this field, Professor. ANSevtrenko ( (. 1907-1987). An excellent Ukrainian linguist who guided me when I studied the General Linguistics program. This program was actually very broad, so it was difficult to approach all aspects. He advised me to choose the most basic content, covering all issues. He gave me some introductory documents to read to initially approach the problem, then a short time later he introduced me to the book: Language and Thought (1867) by A. Potevnya, an outstanding Ukrainian linguist of the late 19th century, whose theory seemed to be close to dialectical epistemology in this issue (especially through the concept of "Internal form of the word"). Honestly, when I read this book, I did not understand much because I did not have enough basic background for the problem, but gradually, thanks to the teacher's introduction and analysis during the process of writing my thesis (related to the semantic problem of word classes), I gradually discovered the aspects of the relationship. the relationship between language and thought.

Next, being exposed to linguistic theories in the 20th century on this issue gradually made me understand that language and thinking are very unified in their reflective function and expressive ability. However, from the real world to the expression of ideas in language, the mind has gone through refractions, and each time, the semantics of language is born from a creation both in terms of communication and art. Language today is not only an image of the world but also has poetry and human emotions. Our semantic awareness is gradually reinforced by the principle: with thinking, language does not express direct logic but only through semantics. Logic expresses right/wrong (truth/falsehood) while language expresses meaning. The refractions of linguistic meaning also represent the cultural thinking of native speakers in both structure and use.

Professors Nguyen Tai Can and Cao Xuan Hao reminded us when they knew we were interested in this issue. Professor Can said, “Be careful, thinking with language is very difficult, don’t simplify, be careful or you will easily return to Port-Royal logic of the 17th century or the logical reasoning of the early 19th century.” Professor Cao Xuan Hao once confided: “I am very discouraged about this because in our country, up to now, there are still people who are so simple that they make regrettable mistakes, considering language as a means of expressing direct logic, while language only represents meaning.” I realized that spirit, strengthened my belief, and tried to follow the direction of looking at the relationship between language and thinking from semantics and pragmatics.

In the summer of 1970, Vietnamese readers learned about the work: Meaning and the Structure of Language by WLChafe, which had just been published in the US, through a Russian translation. It was a rare book at that time about semantics according to the new concept. Mr. Cao Xuan Hao explained it to us (1973), and thanks to that, when reading this book, we realized that the focus of syntax is the semantic structures of language. It was not until the book: Vietnamese - Draft of functional grammar, volume 1 (1991) by Cao Xuan Hao, after reading very carefully the book he sent me, that I realized that the important issue of language and thinking is not only related to logical expressions or function words, language levels, language units, etc., which I had previously taught my students, but language and thinking also lie very deeply in language activities, in the dual mechanism of language and speech. F.de Saussure, in N.Chomsky's linguistics and poetics, then expanded to other aspects of linguistics, especially semantics and pragmatics. Following that, another book that greatly influenced our understanding of this issue was: Meaning and Action: A Critical History of Pragmatism by HS Thayer (1968), a monograph that critically examines Pragmatism from the perspective of Western philosophy itself. From a non-positivist perspective, we can further understand the perspectives of North American and Western European pragmatists and semioticians. From there, we have a basis to understand the semantic status of the authors, the core of which is the influence of the relationship between language and thinking on the two-sided and three-sided theories of signs in general and language in particular, as well as its influence on the study of pragmatism in the context of different native cultures.

This book, in fact, only touches on some very important contents about language and thinking, mainly on the aspects of grammar and semantics. In-depth analyses related to phonology, which are necessary in principle, have to be put aside, indeed due to the limitations of our understanding and level in this field. There are also means to separate into a separate issue that will be more in-depth, for example, the relationship between thinking, language and culture, here we also only dare to mention a few aspects.

In the book, we always place great importance on the issue of language and thinking in relation to native speakers, considering this a very important pillar according to the spirit of F.de Saussure's doctrine: language is the language of native speakers, culture is the culture of native speakers originating from the thinking of native speakers. The role of native speakers has had a great influence on thinking and language in the language system and covers language activities (ie the aspect of native language use). We try to find a separate understanding in the general theory of reflection, of the creative artistic refraction process of language: from reality to native thinking, from thinking to language, from language to language types to the use of language in each language. All form a line, running through different refractions, with localization for each specific language, etc.

We have introduced these contents to students and postgraduates for many years, but each year is not exactly the same, but we try to update specific information, for example, in the first stage, we paid more attention to the aspect of language structure, later we added semantics and pragmatics. During that process, we received support from Vietnamese linguists, in which we are very grateful for the research works of authors Hoang Phe, Do Huu Chau, Ly Toan Thang, Nguyen Van Hiep, Tran Van Co, etc. and other colleagues. It must be said that this issue is increasingly diverse in content as well as methods, so it is not possible to stop at what has been thought of. However, we only consider choosing what we feel is ripe to bring to the university lecture hall, which has given us a great opportunity to share our thoughts with students, postgraduates and researchers as well as with colleagues. The author had the opportunity to exchange and especially had valuable criticisms that surprised us and made us reconsider and adjust our own thoughts. The most recent and useful exchanges were between us and Prof. Ly Toan Thang, an expert in psycholinguistics and Prof. Nguyen Van Hiep, an expert in semantics - grammar, who later turned to the direction of linguistic cognitive research. We wrote the last chapter of this book in the spirit of that exchange.

This book was written over a period of many years. However, up to now, we still feel unsatisfied because theory continues to progress, while linguistic practice is increasingly rich, so our small ambition here is only to present an approach of a person who has had the opportunity to work in this field with a passionate and unceasing enthusiasm for a problem that has interested him for a long time.

We would like to thank our colleagues for their helpful and enthusiastic discussions, contributing both ideas and methods as we sought to shape the content of the book.
During the preparation of this manuscript, we would like to express our sincere thanks to Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Van Tinh - Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Lexicography & Encyclopedia, an experienced expert in the field of publishing, who has kindly helped us. We would like to express our deep gratitude to the Hanoi National University Publishing House for giving us the opportunity to introduce our small product to readers near and far.
On this occasion, I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Faculty of Linguistics, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, where I have spent half a century living and working in the department and on the lecture hall, and have had the opportunity to regularly introduce and share my academic ideas. I feel happy and until today, that sharing is still continuing.