How do Language and Thought Influence Each Other? A Reconsideration of Their Relationship with Parallel References to the History of Philosophy and Cognitive Linguistics

The paper explores the relationship of language and thought with respect to their mutual determination or influence. Two questions are considered crucial: how do we learn the meanings of conventional linguistic signs, including those for abstract concepts, and how do we express our original insights, thoughts and feelings through not-yet-conventional linguistic means. These are followed by succinct answers and extensive elaborations referring to opposite views and linguistic examples from the history of philosophy and cognitive linguistics. It is argued that linguistic expressions, including metaphors, mostly incorporate how people represent (or once represented) the world to themselves through imagination and present (or once presented) the world to others through language. Hence language neither directly shows how we conceive and understand the world nor how we construct it in our thoughts. On the other hand, symbolization through metaphor and metonymy, as well as innovative verbalization, enable our cognition to communicate novel as well as abstract and philosoph­ically demanding meanings.