Date: Wed, 6 Dec 1995 10:59:23 MST
From: Tom Uharriet UTOM[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ADMN.712.NEBO.EDU
Subject: Re: non-linguistic thinking
Thanks Vicki,
C, Basic, Paschal (sp?), etc. are all computer languages. Does he
think in them or are they also stricly translations of something else?
Tom
He reasons quite well with abstractions (and is a computer
programmer
by profession). As for "how," I'm really not sure--since he's not
thinking in English and I am, it's hard for him to explain this to me.
The most noticeable sign of how he's thinking is that if he says
something odd, and I ask him to repeat it, he will repeat it word for
word, because he's already done the translating. For example, he once
said he wanted a ham sandwich on roast beef (meaning he wanted a ham
on rye), and when I said something like "run that by again" he
cheerfully did so. The tricky thing for a lot of us, and maybe particularly
linguists, to remember is that English is a system of abstract reasoning,
Chinese is another, and so on--but that not all systems of abstract
reasoning are languages. (It's possible that someone could construct
a grammar of what my friend is using--but I don't think anyone yet has.)
Vicki Rosenzweig
Tom Uharriet
utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admn.712.nebo.edu