Modes of Thinking in Language Study

Abstract

Abstract:When we speak of language we usually use the concept of a particular language. In this sense the concept denoted with the word language may vary from one language to another. Real language (=the language spoken) on the contrary, is the reality lived by speakers thus encompassing complex and multifarious activities. Depending on the language spoken, the modes of thinking, modes of being in the conception of things and systems of beliefs transmitted by means of particular languages, denote the living reality of language with different grammatical categories. The concept "language" is expressed sometimes with a noun, thus denoting something existing in it; sometimes with a verb, thus denoting an action or an activity; and sometimes with an adverb, thus denoting the mode of an activity. The reality or degree of reality implicit in these grammatical categories involves a particular mode of thinking, prompted with a particular mode of being in the conception of things. Because of this it is necessary to distinguish the concept of language as something different from the reality of language. But first of all it is necessary to determine the reality or degree of reality of both the reality lived by speakers and the thing usually conceived of as language or a language.

The Configuration of Speaking: The Hermeneutics of Idiomatic Knowledge

“…That is, Anglo-Saxons changed their mode of thinking and the implicit mode of conceiving things. They adopted the substantive mode of thinking (Ortega y Gasset, 1992a;Martínez del Castillo, 2013). The did no longer conceive ideas representing categories and determining them to play a particular syntactic function in the sentence or the phrase (primitive way of thinking).…”

“…The did no longer conceive ideas representing categories and determining them to play a particular syntactic function in the sentence or the phrase (primitive way of thinking). They conceived the individuality of objects represented with the ideas of Plato considering them objectively and existing individually (entities, Parmenides and Heraclitus) thus executing categories (substances, Aristotle) to be applied in the act of knowing to individual objects and determining the syntactic status to be played by them with word-order (see Martínez del Castillo, 2013;Martínez del Castillo, 2015j;Martínez del Castillo, 2015k;Ortega y Gasset, 1992a andOrtega y Gasset, 2005). The means to achieve the new mode of thinking and the implicit mode of conceiving things was determination adopting the new determiners created (the, a/an) and using word order as a new means of expression.…”

Categories and Language

“…So the reason given by Lakoff that the classical theory of categories was not the result of empirical study 35 , applies partially to the problem of categories, if it does. Lakoff misunderstands the problem of categories identifying all aspects in them in one and accepting that their nature is structural in the human "unconscious" 36 : one thing is the category speakers use; something completely different is the study of categories by linguists and philosophers; and something completely different is the three levels of linguistic determination 37 applied to categories in order to study them. Categories are instruments a priori, something necessary in human knowledge (universal level of linguistic determination).…”