Patrick Cox

Patrick Cox

Patrick Cox runs The World's language desk. He reports and edits stories about the globalization of English, the bilingual brain, translation technology and more. He also hosts The World's podcast on language, The World in Words.

Consciousness, Poetry, and Bilingual Babies

March 9, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment
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We take a trip inside the mind in this week’s pod.

How much is human consciousness shaped by language? Somewhat, says theoretical psychologist Nicholas Humphrey. He’s more interested in the other things that shape it, like what he calls the “lake of sensation” — colors, lights and sounds. I guess you could argue that those sensations themselves comprise the elements of a language of consciousness.

Humphrey views this kind of raw feeling as predating language in infants. Maybe, but recent research on the bilingual brain suggests that we may begin our language development as early as in the womb. I talk with the host of the Big Show’s Science podcast Rhitu Chatterjee about this. She did her own podcast on the subject. One of the takeaway results of the research is that babies reared in a bilingual setting can distinguish between the two languages, and also between those familiar languages and unfamiliar ones.

Finally, we consider poetry. Some poems might be seen as attempts to revert to a pre-linguistic form of communication. Others try to bridge the gulf between consciousness and language. And then there’s the language of former Turkmenistan leader Saparmurat Niyazov. He liked to call himself Turkmenbashi or Leader of Turkmens (he was the self-appointed president of the Association of Turkmens of the World). His poetry was less engaged with issues of consciousness or language, and more with his own stupendously elevated place in the world. Not so much a lake of sensation as an ocean of self-regard:

I am the Turkmen spirit
And I was reborn
To bring you a golden age and happiness
I came here as a envoy of prosperity
And the music of the melody of life.

Photos: Joseph Pons, Wikimedia Commons

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Discussion

3 comments for “Consciousness, Poetry, and Bilingual Babies”

  • http://www.facebook.com/LauraEGaylord Laura Gaylord

    Children’s brains can so easily become bilingual; babies are born with the ability to distinguish between different languages uses in their unique set of sounds. But that is after birth, I think it would be it wouldn’t be too far fetched that a baby has consciousness in the womb because it reacts to sounds of its mother. Though what does pidgins consciousness be different from using a native language or being bilingual. Or try to compare a creole from a native language in babies. They say that if you don’t have a native language and you learn a language by the time you are 8ish in age your language it is as good as learning a second language (seen in studies of deaf children). You see a lot of bilingualism in babies near coastlines where you see a lot of different cultures living within the country like in the US or Canada, these children use both languages yet they never mix up the two languages. Young children don’t always understand that you only know the one and can only communicate that way. Bilingual children once their older can use their skills to interpret between the two languages and by themselves comparer and contrast different words with out being taught. When you are in an interpreting class they teach you what the word means compared to another language, bilingual children don’t need that.

  • Anonymous

    I feel that consciousness has nothing to do with language. It has to do with how you are brought up. It’s like saying that a person is conscious about certain things because of what languages people know. Like mentioned in the pod cast consciousness is about sensations and feelings. Its about what surrounds us. I feel that living in a diverse area does help have a greater consciousness because you see different ways of living which i feel doesn’t depend so much on language as it is made to seem.
    -Amy B.

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