A variety of different authors, theories and fields purport influences between language and thought.

Many point out the seemingly common-sense realization that upon introspection we seem to think thoughts in the language we speak. A number of writers and theorists have extrapolated upon this idea.

Scientific theories

• The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in linguistics states that the structure of one's mother-tongue influences the way one's mind perceives the world. It has found at best very limited experimental support, at least in its strong form. For instance, a study showing that speakers of languages lacking a subjunctive mood such as Chinese experience difficulty with hypothetical problems has been discredited. However, another study has shown that subjects in memory tests are more likely to remember a given color if their mother language includes a word for that color.

• According to Cognitive therapy, founded by Aaron T. Beck, our emotions and behavior are caused by our internal dialogue. We can change ourselves by learning to challenge and refute our own thoughts, especially a number of specific mistaken thought patterns called "cognitive distortions". Cognitive therapy has been found to be effective by empirical studies.

• In behavioral economics, according to experiments said to support to the theoretical availability heuristic, people believe more probable events that are more vividly described than those which were not. Simple experiments asking people to imagine something led them to believe it to be more likely. The mere exposure effect may also be relevant to propagandistic repetition like the Big Lie. According to prospect theory, people make different economic choices based on how the matter is framed.

In linguistics, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (SWH) states that there is a systematic relationship between the grammatical categories of the language a person speaks and how that person both understands the world and behaves in it. ... Broadly conceived, linguistics is the study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ... The subjunctive mood (sometimes referred to as the conjunctive mood) is a grammatical mood of the verb that expresses wishes, commands (in subordinate clauses), and statements that are contrary to fact. ... Cognitive therapy or cognitive behavior therapy is a kind of psychotherapy used to treat depression, anxiety disorders, phobias, and other forms of mental disorder. ... Aaron T. Beck, M.D. (born 1921), The Father of Cognitive Behavior Therapy, is a professor at the Psychopathology Research Unit of the University of Pennsylvania. ... Cognitive therapy and its variants traditionally identify ten cognitive distortions that maintain negative thinking and help to maintain negative emotions. ... Empirical is an adjective often used in conjunction with science, both the natural and social sciences, which means an observation or experiment based upon experience that is capable of being verified or disproved. ... Nobel Prize in Economics winner Daniel Kahneman, was an important figure in the development of behavioral finance and economics and continues to write extensively in the field. ... The availability heuristic is an oversimplified rule of thumb, or heuristic, which occurs when people estimate the probability of an outcome based on how easy that outcome is to imagine. ... The mere exposure effect is a psychological artifact well known to advertisers: people express undue liking for things merely because they are familiar with them. ... The phrase Big Lie derives from the Big Lie Theory described by Hitler, it has over time become confused with the notion of the Big Lie as a propagandistic technique described by Joseph Goebbels of repeating a lie, whether big or small, and repeating it so often that it becomes... The prospect theory was developed by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in 1979. ... The term framing can have several possible meanings: framing (telecommunication), where it relates to synchronization framing (economics), where it relates to rational choice theory framing (World Wide Web), where it relates to the use of multiple panes within a web page framing (communication theory), where it relates to the contextual...

Other schools of thought

• General Semantics is a school of thought founded by engineer Alfred Korzybski and later popularized by S. I. Hayakawa and others, which attempted to make language more precise and objective. It makes many basic observations of the English language, particularly pointing out problems of abstraction and definition.

• E-prime is a constructed language identical to the English language but lacking all forms of "to be", like Russian or Arabic. Its proponents claim that dogmatic thinking seems to rely on "to be" language constructs, and so by removing it we may discourage dogmatism.

• Neuro-linguistic programming, founded by Richard Bandler, claims that language "patterns" and other things can affect thought and behavior. It takes ideas from General Semantics and hypnosis, especially that of the famous therapist Milton Erickson. Many do not consider it a credible study, and it has no empirical scientific support.

• Advocates of non-sexist language including some feminists say that the English language perpetuates biases against women, such as using male-gendered terms such as "he" and "man" as generic. Many authors including those who write textbooks now conspicuously avoid that practice, in the case of the previous examples using words like "he or she" or "they" and "human race". Political correctness is similar, but it is a loose cultural meme and has never been formally codified. Both are considered widely controversial.

General Semantics is a school of thought founded by Alfred Korzybski in about 1933 in response to his observations that most people had difficulty defining human and social discussions and problems and could almost never predictably resolve them into elements that were responsive to successful intervention or correction. ... Alfred Korzybski (1879–1950), born in Warsaw, Poland, came from a family which had worked as mathematicians, scientists, and engineers for generations, and he chose to train as an engineer. ... Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa (July 18, 1906-February 27, 1992) was an English professor and academic who served as a United States Senator from California from 1977 to 1983. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Dr. David Bourland coined the term E-Prime, short for English Prime, in the 1965 work A Linguistic Note: Writing in E-Prime to refer to the English language modified by prohibiting the use of the verb to be. E-Prime arose from Alfred Korzybskis General Semantics and his... An artificial or constructed language (known colloquially as a conlang among aficionados), is a language whose vocabulary and grammar are specifically devised by an individual or small group, rather than having naturally evolved as part of a culture as with natural languages. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The word copula originates from the Latin noun for a link or tie that connects two different things. ... Arabic (العربية) is a Semitic language, closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. ... Dogma (the plural is either dogmata or dogmas) is belief or doctrine held by a religion or any kind of organization to be authoritative or beyond question. ... Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is based on the assumption that the unconscious mind might be programmed like a computer through the use of language, as well as through images, sounds, and other sensory input. ... Richard Bandler (born February 24, 1950, died May 12, 2005) is the co-inventor (with John Grinder) of Neuro-linguistic programming. ... Hypnosis does not have a single definition that is universally applicable. ... Milton Hyland Erickson, MD (1901 - 1980) was a psychiatrist specializing in medical hypnosis. ... Gender-neutral language (gender-generic, gender-inclusive, non-sexist, or sex-neutral language) is language that attempts to refer neither to males nor females when discussing an abstract or hypothetical person whose sex cannot otherwise be determined, as opposed to more traditional language forms, which may use male or female... Feminism is a body of social theory and a political movement primarily based on, and motivated by, the experiences of women. ... Political correctness is the alteration of language to redress real or alleged injustices and discrimination or to avoid offense. ... The term and concept of meme (pronounced in IPA; from the Greek word for memory) was introduced by Richard Dawkins in 1976 in his book The Selfish Gene. ...

Literature

• George Orwell, the famous political writer, certainly believed in the interplay between language and thought. One of the most fundamental and enduring ideas of his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was the control of "thoughtcrime" through omnipresent spying and propaganda, and the created language Newspeak. The purpose of this fictional language was to make thoughts unapproved by the state "literally unthinkable" by making language unable to express them. In a 1946 essay in which Orwell explores this topic further, Politics and the English Language, he wrote "if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."

• Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote in his Tractatus Logico Philosophicus that "the limits of my language indicate the limits of my world" and explores the philosophy of language.

• Ayn Rand's novella Anthem described a society which banned the use of the word "I", which had implications contrary to the goals of her objectivist philosophy.

• Robert Clark Young's novel One of the Guys describes how the U.S. Navy as an institution employs a secretive acronymic language, accessible to outsiders only through a DICNAVAB (Dictionary of Naval Abbreviations), in order to dehumanize the thought patterns and behavior of military personnel. In the book, actual acronyms are exposed which are so secret, due to their purportedly racist and sexist functions, that they do not appear in the official DICNAVABs. These acronyms include LBFM (Little Brown F***ing Machines), which is used to dehumanize Asian prostitutes; and GUAM (Gooks Under American Management), which is used to dehumanize the non-white population outside the Navy's installations on Guam.

George Orwell George Orwell was the pen name of British author Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950). ... A dystopia (alternatively, cacotopia or kakotopia) is the antithesis of a utopian society. ... Nineteen Eighty-Four (often 1984) is a novel written by George Orwell about the struggle against an all-powerful totalitarian state. ... In George Orwells dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four the government attempts to control not only the speech and actions, but also the thoughts of its subjects, labelling unapproved thoughts with the term thoughtcrime or, in Newspeak, crimethink. In the book, Winston Smith, the main character, writes in his diary... North Korean propaganda showing a soldier destroying the United States Capitol building. ... Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwells famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. ... Some authors use fictional languages as a device to underline differences in culture, by having their characters communicate in a fashion which is both alien and dislocated. ... Politics and the English Language (1946) is one of George Orwells most famous essays. ... Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), pictured here in 1930, made influential contributions to logic and the philosophy of language, critically examining the task of conventional philosophy and its relation to the nature of language. ... Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is the only book-length work published by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in his lifetime. ... Philosophy of language is the branch of philosophy that studies language. ... Publicity photo of Ayn Rand. ... A novella is a short, narrative, prose fiction work. ... Anthem (ISBN 0451191137), first published in 1938, is a science_fiction novella by Ayn Rand. ... Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand. ... Robert Clark Young, American novelist, born 1960. ... One of the Guys is an earnestly satirical and picaresque novel by Robert Clark Young, published in 1999, concerning the fantastical adventures of a man posing as a chaplain on a U.S. Navy ship which goes berzerk and terrorizes a number of ports in the Far East before the... The United States Navy (USN) is the branch of the United States armed forces responsible for naval operations. ... An African-American drinks out of a water fountain marked for colored in 1939 at a street car terminal in Oklahoma City. ... Sexism is discrimination between people based on their Sex rather than their individual merits. ... Prostitution is the sale of sexual services (typically manual stimulation, oral sex, sexual intercourse, or anal sex) for cash or other kind of return, generally indiscriminately with many persons. ...

Other

• Various other schools of persuasion directly suggest using language in certain ways to change the minds of others, including oratory, advertising, debate, sales, and rhetoric. The ancient sophists discussed and listed many figures of speech such as enthymeme and euphemism. Today public relations firms use spin.