Dedre Gentner and Susan Goldin-Meadow (eds): Language in Mind: Advances in␣the Study of Language and Thought.

Abstract

Despite ‘scientific’ developments and experimental research in the fields of linguisticand cognitive sciences, the relationship between language, thought and cognition isfar from settled. On the contrary, these inquiries seem to make the issue ever moreelusive. Empirical investigations are not in themselves decisive, since they arefounded on assumptions and specific modes of posing questions, which go deep intodiverse philosophical musings. This is not to deny the role of preconceptions in anyserious scientific work, but the results can sometimes be just as conclusive as thereckonings of Tweedledum-Tweedledee in ‘‘If it was so, it might be; and if it were so,it would be: but as it isn’t, it ain’t’’ (Lewis Carrol’s Through the Looking Glass). This‘uncertainty’ in experimental physics, way back in 1897, would have almost denied usthe discovery of electrons, had not J. J. Thomson’s sensibilities superseded thepositivistic outlook of his contemporary Walter Kaufmann (Weinberg, 1992). Butthen, ‘‘If science is the constellation of facts, theories, and methods ..., then scientistsare the [wo]men who, successfully or not, have striven to contribute one or anotherelement to that particular constellation. Scientific development becomes the piece-meal process by which these items have been added, singly and in combination, tothe ever growing stockpile that constitutes scientific technique and knowledge’’(Kuhn, 1996, pp. 1–2). The success of the present collection of articles by cognitivescientists and linguists lies in the reconfirmation of these facts. Reposing one of theoriginal questions of the discipline—the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis that contemplatesthe possible influence of language on thought—the book makes latest approachesand research in cognitive linguistics undergo test by fire.As the editors rightly note, the complexity of the relationship betweenthought and language derives from its multi-faceted nature. The varied facets ofthis association—language as ‘‘lens’’, ‘‘tool kit’’ or ‘‘language for speaking’’etc.—invoke interesting but equally varied questions. Further, differences over whataspects of language are relative to diverse linguistic communities, what are universal