Tina&Jane
Member
- Joined
- Sep 2, 2017
- Messages
- 333
- Enneagram
- 9
- Instinctual Variant
- sp/so
I tend to see myself as more of a “language†person in that I’ve tended to do better with reading and writing rather than math or hard sciences, but have weirdly always been a terrible auditory learner and have a lot of difficulty remembering verbal information if it isn’t written down or tied to some visual. I think that this tendency to identify as more of a “language†rather than a “number†person stems from a general tendency in the US (and maybe elsewhere, I just can’t speak to it) to draw hard lines between disciplines that favor one over the other, when really most of what we do is language based or at least mediated by language in some way. You still need a good grasp of language to do well in either math or science because of how it’s taught, and even pure calculation can heavily involve language if you use self-talk, either out loud or internally, to guide your problem solving (but this could also be tied to whether you have a verbal internal monologue). I guess whenever I think of language I’m always drawing distinctions between things that are verbal vs. nonverbal, which overlooks how pervasive language actually is. This is probably also related to my job because intelligence tests and the specific skills they measure are often categorized along these lines, and I find myself describing students as either more verbal or nonverbal (visual) learners if there are large discrepancies between these areas.
Writing has also been one of the only ways I’ve been able to fully connect with my thoughts and understand myself better. I often don’t know what I’m thinking (or feeling) about something until I write it out, and until then a lot of it’s just a disorganized jumble of vague impressions and words. It ties into why I tend to have trouble speaking about in-depth topics in the moment and end up just staying quiet, because while I know the thoughts are there and I’m not completely ignorant of the topic, it’s like writing is the thing that structures and organizes my thinking. I feel a strong connection to writing and written language in general and wish I had discovered it earlier in my life as a way of expressing myself. And even though I genuinely like doing it, writing can be an arduous process for me because of how hard it is to get going initially, but it usually ends up being worth it in the end.
This topic is so broad that it’s really hard to capture everything in one forum post, but these are other language-related topics that I think are interesting:
1) Whether animals have language and differences between communication and language
2) Language experiences and thought processes in deaf individuals (specifically individuals who were born deaf and might have received cochlear implants later in life—how would growing up without hearing spoken language impact your thinking and inner monologue? How would speech development progress after receiving an implant later in life?)
Writing has also been one of the only ways I’ve been able to fully connect with my thoughts and understand myself better. I often don’t know what I’m thinking (or feeling) about something until I write it out, and until then a lot of it’s just a disorganized jumble of vague impressions and words. It ties into why I tend to have trouble speaking about in-depth topics in the moment and end up just staying quiet, because while I know the thoughts are there and I’m not completely ignorant of the topic, it’s like writing is the thing that structures and organizes my thinking. I feel a strong connection to writing and written language in general and wish I had discovered it earlier in my life as a way of expressing myself. And even though I genuinely like doing it, writing can be an arduous process for me because of how hard it is to get going initially, but it usually ends up being worth it in the end.
This topic is so broad that it’s really hard to capture everything in one forum post, but these are other language-related topics that I think are interesting:
1) Whether animals have language and differences between communication and language
2) Language experiences and thought processes in deaf individuals (specifically individuals who were born deaf and might have received cochlear implants later in life—how would growing up without hearing spoken language impact your thinking and inner monologue? How would speech development progress after receiving an implant later in life?)