Do we use language or does language use us?

Answer 1

Both, of course. "Pass the gravy" is me using language, and that's a simple, everyday thing. On the other hand, it's very difficult to think about things we don't have words for, and even more so when we don't even have concepts for them. Hence Newspeak in Orwell's 1984. Hence the word "ineffable" to describe religious experience. And of course, Bertrand Russell's famous "if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything as if it's a nail" describes how limited language limits thought.

Answer 2

They're both true. But the question is :who's first? Language forms the way we think, and then we use language to say what we think. That's why people with different languages think differently too. Language carries a whole conception of the world.

Answer 3

We use language ourselves. However, if you use language in the wrong way it can over power you and become a habbit. For example, cussing. I cuss and it's a bad habbit. I say things I don't even realize I say until it has already came out.

Answer 4

We abuse language, today!

Does anyone ever take the time to think how mindless they sound, when they describe their reaction to something as:

"I was like, you know"

What???

I hire people for my company, and idiotic speech is the first criteria for weeding you out!

It's one thing, if English is your second language. I make allowances for that.

If you "Been had it" and English is your first language, you can bet you're being classified as a moron.

Answer 5

Living with a two-year old boy would satisfy your curiosity immediately. When the little one struggles to be understood, language, of any form, comes to his rescue.

For him, as everyone else, it is merely a tool to facilitate understanding. Thank God!

Answer 6

Sometimes I think that language evolves faster than we do... Actually, I'm sure of it now.

Answer 7

we use it. it is an instrument. We (at leats I) are not tools.