Speech development
It is profound how common it is for individuals to believe that language must affect the thought process. Such thinking is informed by theories such as the cognitive trade-off hypothesis, which posits that the ability to speak through a commonly understood media, sounds, symbols, and signs, led to the loss in cognitive functioning. Throughout evolution, communication was essential for the survival of the human species; thus, the development of language as it would help in warning of danger. Speech development in the human brain also led to more significant planning, unlike in animals where cognitive functioning is limited to the present. Primates, the closest species to human beings, have some form of communication; nonetheless, speech development is not elaborate as that of human beings. To cope up with the inability to speak, primates such as chimpanzees have strong working memory as it enables them to escape danger. The assumption that language impacts thinking is also manifested in the lack of right of conscious beings in animals such as dogs, as without language, they are unable to plan for the future; ” A dog could not have the thought that it would rain tomorrow, therefore lacks the right of conscious beings” (Pinker, 247).
The thinking that language affects the though the process is false, as ascertained by numerous scientists who highlighted flaws in the argument. There is no scientific evidence that word has significant implications on a speaker’s thought process. Understanding flaws in linguistic determinism sets precedence for accepting the lack of correlation between thinking and language. Using examples of children who are unable to communicate in the English language, cognitive scientists established that the inability to talk does not deter the ability to communicate. Language is only a small part of the communication process, which entails the exchange of ideas, feelings, and thoughts from one individual to another or from an individual to a group over a commonly understood medium. Babies are a case in point that typifies the severity in the assumption that language affects thinking, in that, despite being unable to believe in words as they have not learned any, they can perform mental arithmetic.