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Published: 19 June 2024

# Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought

Evelina Fedorenko ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3823-514X 1 , 2 ,

Steven T. Piantadosi 3 &

Edward A. F. Gibson 1

Nature volume 630 , pages 575–586 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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## Abstract

Language is a defining characteristic of our species, but the function, or functions, that it serves has been debated for centuries. Here we bring recent evidence from neuroscience and allied disciplines to argue that in modern humans, language is a tool for communication, contrary to a prominent view that we use language for thinking. We begin by introducing the brain network that supports linguistic ability in humans. We then review evidence for a double dissociation between language and thought, and discuss several properties of language that suggest that it is optimized for communication. We conclude that although the emergence of language has unquestionably transformed human culture, language does not appear to be a prerequisite for complex thought, including symbolic thought. Instead, language is a powerful tool for the transmission of cultural knowledge; it plausibly co-evolved with our thinking and reasoning capacities, and only reflects, rather than gives rise to, the signature sophistication of human cognition.

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## Acknowledgements

The authors thank A. Ivanova, R. Jackendoff, N. Kanwisher, K. Mahowald, R. Seyfarth, C. Shain and N. Zaslavsky for helpful comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript; N. Caselli, M. Coppola, A. Hillis, L. Menn, R. Varley and S. Wilson for comments on specific sections; C. Casto, T. Regev, F. Mollica and R. Futrell for help with the figures; and S. Swords, N. Jhingan, H. S. Kim and A. Sathe for help with references. E.F. was supported by NIH awards DC016607 and DC016950 from NIDCD, NS121471 from NINDS, and from funds from MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Simons Center for the Social Brain, and Quest for Intelligence.

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA Evelina Fedorenko & Edward A. F. Gibson

Speech and Hearing in Bioscience and Technology Program at Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA Evelina Fedorenko

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Fedorenko, E., Piantadosi, S.T. & Gibson, E.A.F. Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought. Nature 630 , 575–586 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07522-w

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Posina Venkata Rayudu 20 June 2024, 14:52 Thinking vs. Parroting We use words and sentences of ordinary languages to communicate our ideas and thoughts. It's particularly pleasing to see this layperson understanding brought into figural salience for all to see in: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought . However, this appears to me as a beginning, calling for a proper study of thought and understanding, especially in light of the advances in mathematics and artificial intelligence. Let us begin with mathematics. Not unlike the ordinary concepts expressed as words for the purpose of communication, mathematical theories are presented symbolically (axioms) for the purpose of calculations. The utilitarian value of calculations, over time, relegated the objective concepts and theories to a distant indiscernible background to the point of mathematics being considered as yet another language and being identified with calculations. Thankfully, in a mathematical revolution, on par with that of Newtonian mechanism of physics and of Darwinian evolution of biology, Professor F. William Lawvere showed that a mathematical theory is a mathematical object . For example, a theory of the category of graphs is subcategory of the category of graphs (see Figure 5). Simply put, the meaning of words is mediated by concepts . The scientific breakthrough that is functorial semantics embodying a definitive mathematical account of concept formation , along with its kinship with that of everyday concepts , is bristling with content needed to fuel advances in our understanding of reality , if only we value concepts and explicate thinking beyond the subjective logic of going from statements to statements . I'd have gone on and on outlining a scientific program of triangulating reality in terms of unity, change, and reflection. In brief, thanks to calculus, physics has had more than enough to work in terms of calculating changes, while being blissfully oblivious to the unity characterizing things (e.g., tables, chairs, and beer bottles). The unity of things (populating the reflective part of reality that is our consciousness) is an objectification of change, which is what we are given (cf. contrast). The objectification of change is made possible thanks to Dharma: Becoming consistent with Being (p. 152) or Naturality : Unity-respecting Change , which may be considered the Zeroth Law of Change (that Newton failed to abstract when that proverbial apple hit his head). While I was busy compounding epistemology and ontology into which reality is resolved in terms categories of reflexive graphs, dynamical systems, and monads (objectifying unity, change, and reflection, respectively), OpenAI ChatGPT arrived unannounced. There is no denying the success of mimicking and parroting, as is evident, if not in the performance of ChatGPT per se, but undeniably in the anxious palpitations that are the editorials of Nature, Science, et al. all against ChatGPT. The academia that warmly welcomed Google with "google it" in the late 1990s is not so welcoming of the ChatGPT or AI; I wonder why? Those of us who made fun of spoken language courses emphasizing accent (especially in India) over grammar find to our chagrin rethinking the value of understanding. Those of us who belittled statistics as mere surface to be contrasted with deep underlying structure that is mathematics find ourselves reminded of Oscar Wilde . Statistical abstraction of the architecture of mathematics , beginning with the good for (pp. 26-31) /universal mapping property definition of SUM (e.g. 1 + 1 = 2 ), appears all but inevitable. In the grand dialectic of language vs. thought, more than anything else, the success of parroting (language; words, sentences, narratives, descriptions, and interpretations, albeit look-up tables) calls for a reaffirmation of the point of thinking (assuming there is), which is beyond my paygrade.

Walid Saba 22 June 2024, 20:10 There are two arguments that refute to the conclusions the authors make in this article: (i) the infinity argument; and (ii) the I-language argument. The Infinity Argument When a speaker S makes encodes a thought tS into an utterance, a listener L decodes the utterance L into a thought tL. In this exchange it is assumed that every utterance made by S is decoded into some thought by L (i.e., L can never say “I cannot make a thought out of this utterance”, much like a compiler will never reply with “although this is valid Java code, I cannot interpret and execute this code”). Thus, the set of utterances (linguistic expressions) is a subset of the set of thoughts one can entertain. But the set of utterances one can make is infinite, and thus the set of thoughts one can make must subsume the infinite number of utterances we can make. The I-Language Argument Throughout the paper the authors are referring to E-languages (i.e., external languages), but the language of thought argument is about the I-language – an internal language of thought. It is the language of thought that we think in, not any external language. Since thoughts can be composed, negated, presupposed, expressed in various ways, means we do have some sort of algebra of thoughts that must also be productive, since we can make any number of complex thoughts. The composition, negation, and other manipulation of thoughts that we make requires a language. It is that language (“the internal language of thought”) that we think in.

Zbigniew Słuszkiewicz Replied to Walid Saba 19 July 2024, 15:25 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09567976241243004

David Chester 26 June 2024, 10:09 How is it possible to think without using words? I believe that it is impossible and that even when a baby has not yet developed a formal vocabulary, he/she will still make logical decisions (and babies are very logical), using substitute meanings instead of the words that are being learned, even if they cannot yet be pronounced.

Manfred Becker 28 June 2024, 13:12 Hi, When someone is reasoning without activity in the language area how does (s)he know this and can communicate his knowledge or reflect himself on this. Manfred

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