Psychoanalytic Psychology Copyright 2008 by the American Psychological Association

2008, Vol. 25, No. 2, 220 –241 0736-9735/08/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0736-9735.25.2.220

THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE IN THE

DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF II
Thoughts and Words

W. W. Meissner, SJ, MD
Psychoanalytic Institute of New England East

The present essay is intended to complement and extend the previous discussion
of the acquisition of language (Part I). The further question arises of the relation
between thought and language. The argument is presented that the capacity for
thought arises developmentally before the emergence of the capacity for lin-
guistic expression. Also functionally, on the mature and adult level, thought is
regarded as independent of and antecedent to verbal expression. The word, in
this sense, is a partial and incomplete expression of the fullness and complexity
of the thought behind it. The relation of thought and word is traced develop-
mentally in terms of Vygotsky’s analysis of concept development, in which
thought and language follow different paths of development and achieve final
integration and synthesis in adolescence. The development of thinking capacity
and the evolution of inner speech points to the autonomy and independent
synthetic capacity of the subjective self even before the development of lin-
guistic competence. Beyond the reach and comprehension of the word, the
thought remains active and alive nonetheless in the private inner world of the
subjective self.

Keywords: thought, word, concept formation, self, consciousness

Given the acquisition of language, as discussed in part I (Meissner, 2008), further

questions arise concerning the relationship between language and thought, and the
implications of their connection for the understanding of the self. The related issue
regarding the status of the self focuses around the question whether there is a self existing
and actively thinking antecedent to or independent of the use of language or not. As an
intermediate step leading toward that consideration, one of the salient questions is whether
there can be any thoughts without words. In this present essay, I will explore some aspects
of the complex relationship between thought and language. In a subsequent discussion

W. W. Meissner, SJ, MD, Psychoanalytic Institute of New England East.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to W.W. Meissner, SJ, MD, St.
Mary’s Hall, Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467. E-mail:
meissner@bc.edu

220
 LANGUAGE IN DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF II 221

(Meissner, 2008), I will address the implications of the process of language acquisition
and the connections of thought and word for the emergence and linguistic function of
pronouns. The meaning and use of pronouns, particularly the first person pronouns, has
direct implications for the understanding and functioning of the self.

On the Relationship of Thoughts and Words

The problem of the relation between thought and language is highly controverted.
Opinions vary between those who take thinking to be identical with verbalization or who
at least regard language as essential to and united with thought—a view of thinking
Vygotsky (1962c) characterized as “speech minus sound”—and others, who regard
thought as independent of language or who view the word as not identical with the
preceding or underlying thought, so that language is essentially the modality of expression
of already formed thought.1 Freud would have to be counted among those for whom
conscious thought and language were interdependent (Schmidt-Hellerau, 2001). As Wil-
son and Weinstein (1992) observed: “Freud stipulated that language allows thoughts to
become conscious. It is only through language that one is enabled to have any memory of
a thought process” (p. 356). However, late in his career he seemed to entertain some
doubts that the connection was so absolute about the preconscious. In his Outline (Freud,
1964) he wrote: “It would not be correct, however, to think that connection with mnemic
residues of speech is a necessary precondition of the preconscious state. On the contrary,
that state is independent of a connection with them, though the presence of that connection
makes it safe to infer the preconscious nature of the process (p. 162).2 Thus, words in the
Freudian view may arise preconsciously, but not without metaphoric and metonymic
connotations and connections stemming from the unconscious—a view echoing somewhat

1
Sapir (1921) was an early advocate of the no-thought-without-words view. But by thought he
seems to have had in mind propositional thought, which he distinguished from imagery. Any attempt
to consciously relate images, in his view, automatically called silent language into play. He
remarked: “One may go so far as to suspect that the symbolic expression of thought may in some
cases run along outside the fringe of the conscious mind, so that the feeling of a free, non-linguistic
stream of thought is for some minds of a certain type a relatively, but only a relatively, justified one”
(p. 16). A more contemporary exponent of the same view is Jacques (1991) who commented, “First,
we cannot think outside language, and the language in which we think is necessarily the language
in which we communicate” (p. 191). Further: “In any case, thought is not something inward; it
cannot exist outside words (words that might at least potentially be spoken), or outside an
interlocutive relation that is at least possible; it does not exist outside the word. Thought is of the
order of meaning. It is what a person says to him or herself, and it must not be confused with the
ability to conjure up an idea or representation in the mind” (p. 215). I may be misreading the last
sentence, but it strikes me as suggesting that thought is really subvocal speech and shouldn’t be
confused with anything like an idea. E contra, I would presume that thought is precisely concerned
with ideas, and that transcription of thought into silent speech is a further step toward possible
communication. Another exponent of the no-thought-without-words view is Cavell (1993) who
argues that mental phenomena are synonymously social or interpersonal and that “language is the
condition for the mental in general, whether conscious or unconscious” (pp. 38-39).
2
In addition, as Leavy (1978) added, “The word, to be sure, is formed in the preconscious, but
its metaphoric and metynomic bonds are forged in the unconscious and remain there, determinative
of subsequent connections” (p. 278).
222 MEISSNER

Vygotsky’s distinction of sense and meaning (see below).3 In terms of the role of the self
in this process, some part of prelinguistic thought processes may take place unconsciously
as well as preconsciously, so that this level of mental activity may be regarded as a
function of the self-as-agent without yet coming to the level at which the process becomes
conscious, and thereby can be accounted as a function of the self-as-subject, as yet without
the benefit of words.4
One of the classic linguistic perspectives, which tends to grant priority to language
over thought, is the so-called Whorfian hypothesis. Vetter (1969) had pointed out that
“Both Sapir and Whorf emphasized the importance of structural elements of language in
the organization of perceptual and cognitive experience” (p. 53). Study of American
Indian languages led Whorf (1950) to conclude, as Brown (1970) paraphrased: “Language
is not a cloak following the contours of thought. Languages are molds into which infant
minds are poured. Whorf thus departs from the common sense view in a) holding that the
world is differently experienced and conceived in different linguistic communities and b)
suggesting that language is causally related to these psychological differences” (p. 237).
However, the language in question in this context is the language of the adults who convey
the culturally conditioned perspectives on the world that they know.
This does not, as far as I can see, reverse the sequence in the child’s mind from thought
to word. As Brown (1970) commented, “To the degree that children are motivated to
speak a language as it is spoken in their community they are motivated to share the world
view of that community” (p. 242). Thus, while cognitive processes are molded by the
learning of language and culture, in actual usage the thought so formed gives rise to
expressive words. Thus, the divergence of cultural forms is reflected in linguistic terms.
Moreover, as far as I can see, there is room to question the somewhat simplistic
presumption of the shaping of thought by language. It is no surprise, in the Eskimo world
of perpetual snow and ice, that the minor differentiations in those elements would play a
crucial role in environmental adaptation and that these subtle discriminations would find
their way into the language. However, I would presume that originally the recognition and
differentiation of these differences mentally gives rise to their expression in words rather
than the opposite. The terms become embedded in the language and culture and are then
passed on to the next generation and thus contribute to the learning and adaptive skills of
the young. Even then, the terms do no more than name experiential differentations.
In contrast, Vygotsky emphasized the priority of thought over language. In the child’s
external development of language, he progresses from single words to combinations of
words and to simple and then more complex sentences, but as far as meaning goes the
original single word is equivalent to a whole sentence. Only gradually does he develop the
linguistic tools to parse the undifferentiated meaning into semantic units. Thus, “The

3
A word of caution is probably in order. Ricoeur (1978) pointed out the deficiencies in the
knowledge of linguistic theory available to Freud in his day. What Freud might have thought, had
he the opportunity to study the vastly more complex and sophisticated linguistic knowledge and
theories of the present day, would be an interesting speculation.
4
This level of conceptual-affective development is addressed by Ogden (1990) as an autistic-
contiguous mode, which he described as a “primitive, presymbolic, sensori-dominated mode” (p.
82). As he explained, “The autistic-contiguous mode of experiencing is a presymbolic, sensory
mode and is therefore extremely difficult to capture in words. Rhythmicity and experiences of
sensory contiguity contribute to the earliest psychological organization in this mode. Both rhyth-
micity and experiences of surface contiguity are fundamental to the earliest relations with objects:
the nursing experience and the experience of being held, rocked, spoken to, and sung to in the arms
of the mother” (p. 83).
 LANGUAGE IN DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF II 223

external and semantic aspects of speech develop in opposite directions— one from the
particular to the whole, from word to sentence, and the other from the whole to the
particular, from sentence to word” (Vygotsky, 1962b, p. 186). In this process, thought and
word follow different patterns, with more differences than similarities; so that thought is
subject to a series of changes as it moves into speech, preventing the structure of speech
from simply mirroring the structure of thought. In this sense, the process of thought and
speech are not identical, nor is there any direct correspondence between the units of
thought and those of speech. As he noted, “Thought has its own structure, and the
transition from it to speech is no easy matter” (Vygotsky, 1962b, p. 208).5 He (Vygotsky,
1962c) explained further: “Thought and word are not cut from one pattern. In a sense,
there are more differences than likenesses between them. The structure of speech does not
simply mirror the structure of thought; that is why words cannot be put on by thought like
a ready-made garment. Thought undergoes many changes as it turns into speech” (p.
126).6
From the perspective of the question of the relation of thoughts to words, Stern and the
Boston Change Process Study Group (2004) have mustered some relevant empirical data,
which they use to demonstrate the early entrance into intersubjectivity (social interaction),
but which serves equally well to substantiate the presence of infantile thinking and
mentation well before the acquisition of language. They point to patterns of mutual
interaction and coordination between mother and child involving timing of movements,
mimickery of facial expressions and anticipations of the other’s intentions; affective
attunement, that is “a form of selective and cross-modal imitation, as the path to sharing
inner feeling states, in contrast to faithful imitation as the path to sharing overt behavior”
(p. 647). The evidence points to the conclusion that “infants are born with minds that are
especially attuned to other minds as manifest through their behavior” (p. 648).
The patterns become more elaborate after about 7 to 9 months, when “sharable mental
states start to include goal-directed intentions, focus of attention, affects and hedonic
evaluations, and, as before, the experience of action” (p. 648). Regarding intentionality,
they cite a typical experiment in which “the preverbal infant watched an experimenter pick
up an object and “try” to put it into a container. However, the experimenter dropped the
object en route, so the intended goal was not reached. Later, when the infant was brought
back to the scene and given the same material, he picked up the object and directly put it
into the container. In other words, he enacted the action that he assumed was intended, not
the one he saw. The infant had chosen to privilege the unseen, assumed intention over the
seen, actual action” (p. 649).
These interactive and communicative patterns speak to the activity in the presymbolic
and preverbal infant of thought processes that connote the existence of a sense of self and

5
As Vygotsky (1962b) noted aphoristically, “Just as one sentence may express different
thoughts, one thought may be expressed in different sentences” (p. 209); and in addition, the thought
contained in a sentence occurs as one thought, but that thought must be transposed into a succession
of linguistic units to be spoken.
6
On the question whether all conscious thought is essentially propositional (thus requiring use
of language) or not, LeDoux (1996) has opined: “The relation between language and consciousness
is complex and controversial. My view is that while language is not a necessary precursor to
consciousness, the presence of language (or at least the necessary cognitive capacities that make
language possible) allows a unique kind of awareness in humans” (p. 333). He goes on to say that
the capacity to understand speech is not necessary for consciousness – the deaf and dumb are
certainly conscious in that they have the necessary capacities for understanding language but are
unable to put them to use.
224 MEISSNER

a sense of the other as in some sense the same and in some sense different from the self.
These experiential meanings are further concretized and specified when the emerging
language capacity allows them to be named as such. Stern (1997) formulated this level of
preverbal experience in terms of the concept of unformulated experience— unformulated
in that it has never reached the level of consciousness. Stolorow et al. (2001) add this
amplifying comment:

During the preverbal period of infancy, the articulation of the child’s experience is achieved
through attunements communicated in the sensorimotor dialogue with caregivers. With the
maturation of the child’ symbolic capacities, symbols gradually assume a place of importance
alongside sensorimotor attunements as vehicles through which the child’s experience is
validated within the developmental system. [I]n that realm of experience in which conscious-
ness increasingly becomes articulated in symbols, unconscious becomes coextensive with
unsymbolized. When the act of articulating an experience is perceived to threaten an
indispensable tie, repression can now be achieved by preventing the continuation of the
process of encoding that experience in symbols (p. 677).

Ultimately, the development of verbal thought requires a uniting in some fashion of

thought and word, but word meanings are different and can change.7 Early on, a child may
use a newly learned term to express a range of meanings—“duck” can apply to the bird
in a pond and to the eagle on a coin, and further to all round objects. Later on, the same
word can acquire multiple meanings— children are often surprised and puzzled that two
different persons can be called by the same name. Gradually, the use of language is
interiorized so that, by about seven the child is able to think in words rather than speaking
them, so that the basic structures of speech become synonymous with the structures of
conscious thought (Adams, 1972).
The child uses words early to communicate with others long before they connote fully
developed thought. Vygotsky (1962c) had compared thought and speech to two intersect-
ing circles, in which the overlapping part represented verbal thought. The rest of the
circles comprised forms of nonverbal thought and nonintellectual speech. In another place
he (Vygotsky, 1987) wrote: “The structure of speech is not a simple mirror image of the
structure of thought. It cannot, therefore, be placed on thought like clothes off a rack.
Speech does not merely serve as an expression of developed thought. Thought is
restructured as it is transformed in speech. It is not expressed but completed in the word”
(p. 251). The contemporary view of this development correspondingly tends to see
thought and speech evolving along independent paths leading to the juncture at which
thoughts become verbal and speech rational (Bucci, 1997).

7
An additional issue, one that can remain indeterminate for our purposes, is raised in the
anti-essentialist perspective of philosophical pragmatism. The question is whether words and
propositions have an inherent significance and intelligibility in themselves or whether the meaning
derives from their articulation within a chain of other related signifiers. As Rorty (1991) observed:
“Once one drops the essentialist idea that things have both intrinsic and relational properties–
properties which they have “in themselves” and properties which they have merely in relation to,
e.g., human desires and interests–then a Saussurian notion of language and a Davidsonian anti-
representationalist account of knowledge follow naturally. To say this is to emphasize the context-
sensitivity of signs and of thoughts–to treat them not as quasi-things but as nodes in a web of
relations” (pp. 130-131). The parallels with Lacan’s chain of signifiers seem obvious.
 LANGUAGE IN DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF II 225

Concept Formation

Further development of the relation of thought and word can be traced in Vygotsky’s
(1962a, c) study of concept formation, in which thinking and speech have different genetic
roots and develop independently. He found a prelinguistic phase in thought and a
preintellectual phase in speech (Bruner, 1962). These separate and parallel courses of
development remain so until about two years of age, when they join to give rise to a new
form of behavior. At this point, the child seems to have discovered that words have a
symbolic function— expressed at first in the naming of objects. At that point, speech
becomes rational and thought (or at least conscious thought) becomes verbal. Before this,
the earliest forms of babbling and crying contribute to linguistic development but have
nothing to do with thought.
In Vygotsky’s view, concept formation begins in early childhood and progresses
developmentally, to ripen only at puberty. Before that certain intellectual functions are
found that are similar to later concepts, serving as functional equivalents to true concepts;
they cannot be equated without ignoring the developmental process between early and
final stages.8 As he concluded: “Concept formation is the result of a complex activity in
which all the basic intellectual functions take part. The process cannot, however, be
reduced to association, attention, imagery, inference, or determining tendencies. They are
all indispensable, but they are insufficient without the use of the sign, or word, as the
means by which we direct our mental operations, control their course, and channel them
toward the solution of the problem confronting us” (p. 283). Introduction of the word as
instrumental to concept formation does not add any new functions, “but all the existing
functions are incorporated into a new structure, form a new synthesis, become parts of a
new complex whole; the laws governing this whole also determine the destiny of each
individual part. Learning to direct one’s own intellectual processes with the aid of words
or signs is an integral part of the process of concept formation” (p. 283). He concluded that
concepts are formed “through an intellectual operation in which all the elementary mental
functions participate in a specific combination. This operation is guided by the use of
words as the means of actively centering attention, of abstracting certain traits, synthe-
sizing them, and symbolizing them by a sign” (1962c, p. 81). This process comes to its full
development in adolescence (Vygotsky, 1962c).9
The first step toward concept formation occurs when the child groups several disparate
objects together into a “heap” or conglomerate that is represented by a mental image, so
that word meaning amounts to little more than designating this collection. Such complexes
lack logical unity, and thus lack the coherence of a concept. They are formed based on
diffuse and indeterminate bonds; hierarchical organization is lacking and all attributes are
functionally equal. Single traits are not abstracted and given a specific role as criterion of
inclusion as in the use of concepts. This lends the complex a quality of limitless
expandability by adding more and more objects to the group. Thus, “Word meaning

8
I would note the congruence between Vygotsky’s view of prelinguistic concept formation and
the findings from study of congenitally deaf children. Freedman (1977) cites the conclusion of
Eberhardt (1940) to the effect that “The experiments show that the world of the young deaf is
already organized beyond the perceptual level and that this organization closely follows that of
speaking people. They show clearly that language is not essential for organized conceptual thought”
(p. 5, cited in Freedman on p. 200).
9
A thoughtful and comprehensive overview of the emergence and integration of language in
the development of thinking is provided in Hobson (2002).
226 MEISSNER

denotes nothing more to the child than a vague syncretic conglomeration of individual
objects that have somehow or other coalesced into an image in his mind” (Vygotsky,
1962c, pp. 59 – 60, italics in original).
The next stage Vygotsky calls “thinking in complexes” in which objects are united not
just by the child’s impression, but by some connection actually existing between objects.
In this advance, egocentrism has partly faded and he no longer takes the connections of
his impression for the connection among things—a step in the direction of objective
thinking. The overlap and similarity between adult usage and the child’s, however, has led
to the false assumption that forms of adult intellectual activity exist in embryo in the
child’s thinking, thus creating the illusion that the final stage in the development of word
meaning does not differ from the starting point (Vygotsky, 1962a, c).
Vygotsky (1962a, c) also described an intermediate stage of the “pseudoconcept” in
which the child’s generalization phenotypically resembles the adult concept, but is still
essentially a complex. If the sample, for example, is to include yellow triangles, the child
may include triangles of all kinds as if guided by a single concept, whereas he is actually
guided by a visible likeness limited to a concrete perceptual bond. Pseudoconcepts prevail
in the preschool child’s mind “for the simple reason that in real life complexes corre-
sponding to word meanings are not spontaneously developed by the child: The lines along
which a complex develops are predetermined by the meaning a given word already has in
the language of adults” (1962a, p. 291, italics in original). Thus, the adult cannot pass his
mode of thinking on to the child, but he can only provide the given meaning of a word
around which the child forms a complex along with all the peculiarities of thinking in
complexes. The result is that the pseudoconcept and real concept may seem similar, thus
complicating the communication between adult and 3-year-old. Gradually certain words
acquire a partial similarity for both child and adult, especially words referring to concrete
objects in the child’s world, and this allows a degree of mutual understanding. Word
meaning at this stage may refer to the same objects for both child and adult, but the child
thinks about them in a different way using different mental operations.10
Further advances in abstraction are based on grouping according to single attributes.
Vygotsky (1962a, c) regarded these formations as precursors to true concepts, that is, as
“potential concepts” one step removed from pseudoconcepts. Progression to development
of true concepts involves a complex of intellectual operations. As he comments: “Only the
mastery of abstraction, combined with advanced complex thinking, enables the child to
progress to the formation of genuine concepts. A concept only emerges when the
abstracted traits are synthesized anew and the resulting abstract synthesis becomes the
main instrument of thought. The decisive role in this process, as our experiments have
shown, is played by the word, deliberately used to direct all the part processes of advanced
concept formation” (1962a, p. 302). This process gradually unfolds in a shift from
complexive-perceptual definition of equivalence to a superordinate-functional basis, so
that rational classification based on function replaces earlier complexive grouping. Nev-
ertheless, as Olver and Hornsby (1972) caution, “But such growth is not inevitable, not
complete, and not something that invades every corner of the mind” (p. 320).
Vygotsky (1962a) summarized his findings on concept formation as follows:
The processes leading to concept formation develop along two main lines. The first is complex
formation: The child unites diverse objects in groups under a common “family name”; this

10
Vygotsky (1962a) also notes the similarity of thinking in complexes with the form of
participation identified by Levy-Bruhl (1918) in primitive peoples.
 LANGUAGE IN DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF II 227

process passes through various stages. The second line of development is the formation of
“potential concepts”, based on singling out certain common attributes. In both, the use of the
word is an integral part of the developing processes, and the word maintains its guiding
function in the formation of genuine concepts, to which these processes lead (p. 304)

With regard to mature and conscious concept formation, he (Vygotsky, 1962c) added:
“All the higher psychic functions are mediated processes and signs are the basic means
used to master and direct them. The mediating sign is incorporated in their structure as an
indispensable, indeed the central, part of the total process. In concept formation, that sign
is the word, which at first plays the role of means in forming a concept and later becomes
its symbol” (p. 56).
The process reaches fulfillment in adolescence Vygotsky (1962c) commented:

The new significative use of the word, its use as a means of concept formation, is the
immediate psychological cause of the radical change in the intellectual process that occurs on
the threshold of adolescence. No new elementary function, essentially different from those
already present, appears at this age, but all the existing functions are incorporated into a new
structure, form a new synthesis, become parts of a new complex whole; the laws governing
this whole also determine the destiny of each individual part. Learning to direct one’s own
mental processes with the aid of words or signs is an integral part of the process of concept
formation. The ability to regulate one’s actions by using auxiliary means reaches its full
development only in adolescence (pp. 59, italics in original)

Following up on Vygotsky’s studies, Luria (1959), in addition to the syntactic and

semantic functions of language, emphasized that language can also have a pragmatic or
directive function. Vygotsky had pointed out that the words of adults played a role in the
development of the child’s mental processes. The child acts at first with the help and
instruction of the adult, then later assumes his own self-direction with the support of
speech in organizing his own behavior. The function which was at first a result of
communication between two people becomes an internal function of the child’s mind—an
aspect or form of internalization. Luria noted that the word stimulates a reaction in cortical
connections that, in normal and mature brains, are highly mobile and easily replaced—the
mobility of these connections (Pavlov’s second signal system) are greater than the
excitations elicited by the immediate signals. In early stages of development this mobility
is even more marked, so that the directive role of the word is quite limited—as Luria
noted, “The directive role of the word at an early age is maintained only if the word does
not conflict with the inert connections which arose at an earlier instruction or which began
with the child’s own activity” (p. 72). Even when the child is later capable of more
complete sentence comprehension, the effectiveness of the directive role can be compro-
mised or absent. Experiments suggest that any practical correspondence between the
semantic meaning and directive function of a sentence may be delayed for a long time.
Understanding the meaning of an instruction does not mean that the child can execute
it correctly. Under instructions to press or not press a bulb in response to different colored
lights, often enough, the inert excitation roused by the positive part of an instruction
overwhelms the inhibitory component. At 21⁄2, for example, the child might say “Press!”
when the signal appears, but his mental energy is so absorbed in uttering the word that the
associated motor reaction is aborted. Consequently, “The child at this age cannot yet
create a system of neural processes that includes both verbal and motor links, and the word
does not play any directive role” (p. 79, italics in original). However, the child does begin
to achieve this coordination when he begins to issue his own commands, so that “In
228 MEISSNER

concentrating the diffuse excitation, the child’s own verbal responses, functioning on a
feedback principle, here acquire their directive function” (p. 79).
However, at 3 to 31⁄2 years, the directive aspect even of the child’s own speech remains
nonselective and nonspecific; another year must pass before “the verbal response ‘Don’t
press’ actually acquires the inhibitory effect specific to speech” (p. 80). As soon as the
directive function becomes integrated with the semantic aspect, external speech no longer
seems necessary, so that “The directive role is taken over by those inner connections that
lie behind the word, and they now begin to display their selective effect in directing the
further motor responses of the child” (p. 80). To some extent, then, the child seems able
to comprehend the instruction, but the connection of word and action remain to a degree
unstable and the operative comprehension seemingly for a time incomplete.
Laver (1970) drew attention to the mental intention of saying something before
actually saying it: it is a distinctive form of consciousness and intentionality, but how
much of it, he questions, involves images of words or things? As words and things come
to mind the anticipatory intention fades, but as the words and images emerge the subject
regards them as right if they agree with the intention or wrong if they don’t. Finding the
right words, for any speaker or writer, involves retrieving and selecting elements from
semantic memory and combining them so as to arrive at just the right formulation. This
selective function implies that “the planning function has to be able to scrutinize the
competing candidates, assess their degree of semantic relevance to the expression of the
initial idea, and choose the most appropriate item” (p. 67). But this process is not
performed on a sound-by-sound or word-by-word basis; rather “It is much more likely that
the neural elements corresponding to much longer stretches of speech are assembled in
advance, and then allowed to be articulated as a single continuous program” (p. 68). That
the selecting process can misfire is suggested by slips of the tongue reflecting transient
malfunctions of the neural organization involved in producing the speech program—as he
put it, they might better be called slips of the mind or brain rather than of the tongue
(Laver, 1970).11
Following a similar line of thought underlining the divergence of intention and words,
Brown (1973) observed: “The germ of the sentence is, in fact, said to be an intention; more
exactly that part of the speaker’s total intention which he means to embody in words. This
intention is preverbal. It is composed of conceptions and relations, not of morphemes or
words though we will have to use words to represent both conceptions and relations” (p.
111). In addition, Bucci (1997) expanded this view as follows: “There is now increasing
recognition within cognitive science of a wide range of systematic human information
processing beyond images and words. These would include representations and processes
in which the elements are not discrete, organization is not categorical, processing occurs
simultaneously in multiple parallel channels, higher level units are not generated from
discrete elements, and explicit processing rules cannot be identified (p. 13).
Within a neurological perspective, these difficulties in translating thoughts into words
can be exacerbated in some forms of aphasia in which the rate of speaking is reduced. The

11
I would suggest that the problem of the matching of thought with word is common in the
experience of poets, or other creative authors, who may struggle with this issue, writing and
rewriting, revising at great length at times, to find the right words or combination of words to express
the content and innuendos of their poetic thought and/or imagery. The planning and monitoring
functions, together with frequent revisions, are integral functions of the process of language
production, whether such editing is carried on covertly (i.e., unconsciously or preconsciously) or
overtly (i.e., consciously).
 LANGUAGE IN DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF II 229

slowing does not seem to involve a disturbance in articulation, but rather lies in the
inability to organize the motor events necessary for speech. The conceptual aspects of
language and language use are intact, but the organizing and coding aspects are affected,
making it difficult to put silent thoughts into words (Marshall, 1970). Correspondingly,
Damasio (1999) pointed out that, regardless of the degree of language impairment,
thought processes and states of consciousness remained essentially intact. He concluded
that, whatever the contribution of language to thought, its contribution to core conscious-
ness12 was not evident. Even in the case of severe global aphasia, in which there is a
breakdown of all language functions, patients cannot understand or produce any language
beyond stereotypical words, but communication is still possible using nonverbal or
nonlinguistic signs. As Damasio commented: “As you familiarize yourself with the tools
at the patient’s disposal, it will never even cross your mind to ask if that human being is
or is not conscious. In terms of core consciousness that human being is no different than
you and me, despite the inability to translate thought into language and vice versa” (p.
109).13 In addition, as Glucksberg and Danks (1975) add: “[A]dults who lose speech as
a result of brain damage, or who temporarily lose speech as a result of temporary
paralysis, can still think. They can solve abstract problems, do arithmetic, reason logically,
and so on. Finally, thought can be completely nonverbal. Visual thinking is something we

12
Damasio (1999) distinguished between core and extended consciousness. Core conscious-
ness is the basic state of awareness of the immediate present, which “is disrupted in akinetic
mutisms, absence seizures, and epileptic automatisms, persistent vegetative state, coma, deep sleep
(dreamless), and deep anesthesia” (p. 121). In contrast, extended consciousness reaches beyond the
immediate present to include both past and future, connecting the sense of self to a lived past and
an anticipated future. It is closely dependent on autobiographical memory. As Damasio (1999)
commented: “In core consciousness, the sense of self arises in the subtle, fleeting feeling of
knowing, constructed anew in each pulse. Instead, in extended consciousness, the sense of self arises
in the consistent, reiterated display of some of our own personal memories, the objects of out
personal past, those that can easily substantiate our identity, moment by moment, and our
personhood” (p. 196, italics in original). When extended conscious is disrupted, as when patients
suffer profound disturbances of autobiographical memory, core consciousness can remain intact, but
when core consciousness is compromised or lost, extended consciousness is disrupted as well. I have
discussed the further implications of these views in my Time, Self and Psychoanalysis (Meissner,
2007). It is worth noting in this context that bilingual subjects in analysis often report a language-
related, dual sense of self differentiated in relation to separate languages (Akhtar, 1995; Marcos et
al., 1977). One might take this finding as supporting the language-self equation, but I would contend
that the dual linguistic frameworks reflect variations within the sense of self operative in the
self-as-object, and are reflective of sets of autobiographic memories associated with each context of
language experience in their extended consciousness. In addition, the continuity of the subjective
sense of self is maintained in these individuals. The language hypothesis would hold in these terms
for some aspects of the self-experience but not the whole. See also discussions of bilingual and
multi-lingual language and self-experience in Katsavdakis et al. (2001); Tesone (1996), and Panel
(2000) and of the dynamic and defensive uses of multiple languages in analysis in Akhtar (1995) and
Movahedi (1996).
13
Sacks’ (1970) comment is worth reading: “Because speech–natural speech– does not consist
of words alone, nor (as Hughlings Jackson thought) “propositions” alone. It consists of utterance–an
uttering forth of one’s whole meaning with one’s whole being–the understanding of which involves
infinitely more than mere word-recognition. In addition, this was the clue to aphasiacs’ understand-
ing, even when they might be wholely uncomprehending of words as such. For though the words,
the verbal constructions, per se, might convey nothing, spoken language is normally suffused with
“tone”, embedded in an expressiveness which transcends the verbal–and it is precisely this
expressiveness, so deep, so various, so complex, so subtle, which is perfectly preserved in aphasia,
though understanding of words is destroyed” (p. 81, italics in original).
230 MEISSNER

are all capable of to some extent. Clearly, neither speech nor language can be equated with
thought” (p. 177). Also, Pribram (1978) arguing along this same line, pointed to the
distinction and separate brain localization of aphasias and agnosias, and commented:
“Whatever the brain mechanisms for cognition [affected in the agnosias] and language
[affected in the aphasias], they are separately affected in these patients—language fluency
often remains intact despite severe cognitive retardation. Thus, language cannot be just the
tip of the cognitive iceberg, the ultimate expression of cognitive ability” (p. 79).
In considering the possibility of ranges of thought beyond the reach of language, some
philosophers would distinguish between thought and skill or know-how, regarding the
former as propositional and the latter as not so. Consequently, they identify thought and
language, but without offering convincing evidence that natural language is the only form
of mental representation involved in thinking (Huttenlocher, 1973).14 As Huttenlocher
(1973) observed, when subjects are asked to solve verbal problems involving comparison
or ranking of material objects, they convert the verbal information of the problem to forms
of imaginary visual representation and manipulate the images to reach a solution. As he
noted, “But in no case do they regard their mental operations in obtaining an answer as
involving natural language in any essential way” (p. 179).
Church (1966) also noted, “Introspective accounts of creative thinking suggest that
much thinking, and sometimes the most fruitful kind, goes on unconsciously and appar-
ently wordlessly. We all know the kind of experience described by St. Augustine: ‘When
you do not ask me, I know; when you ask me, I do not know,’ indicating that though words
may fail us, thought does not. There is abundant evidence that some types of human
concept formation can take place without verbalization” (p. 148). It seems obvious, for
example, that, in all forms of art except literature, there is a high level of conceptualization
and thinking and meaning, but without any reliance on language—this would include
music, painting, sculpture, and perhaps even architecture.15
Part of the difficulty arises from Saussure’s expansion of the range of the semiotic to
include the symbolic. Piaget (1970) had pointed out the difficulties inherent in the effort
to understand the relation between linguistic and logical structures. One source of
difficulty, as he saw it, was that in Saussure’ s view the symbolic or semiotic function
includes all forms of imitation in addition to language, that is, mimicking, symbolic play,
mental imagery, and so on. Consequently, linguistic theorists acquired a license to regard
all forms of symbolic expression as inherently semiotic. As Piaget noted, it is too often
forgotten that the development of mental representation and thought are connected with

14
As Piaget (1970) had noted, “While the logical positivists, enthusiastically followed by
Bloomfield, wanted to reduce mathematics and logic to linguistics and the entire life of the mind to
speech, Chomsky and his followers base grammar [i]n logic and language on the life of reason” (p.
83). Hobson (1999), for another, stipulates the connection of propositional thought with conscious-
ness: “Without the capacity to create the abstract, symbolic representations of external reality and
internal experience that are encoded as language, there could be no conscious thought. Thought is
distinctly propositional and so constitutes an internal language” (p. 64). One should be careful here
to distinguish unvocalized internal thought from Vygotsky’s inner speech. The identification of
internal subvocal thought with conscious thought leaves open the question of preverbal or nonverbal
forms of thinking and the extent to which the sense of any thinking eludes the grasp of the meaning
conveyed in conscious language.
15
My own view is that the attempts of language theorists to regard these obvious nonlinguistic
forms of meaning as if they were somehow forms of linguistic expression seems to me to represent
a form of theoretical imposition on the facts, looking to fit the facts to the theory while disregarding
the nature of the facts.
 LANGUAGE IN DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF II 231

this general semiotic function rather than to language alone. As he argued, “How
otherwise could we explain that deaf-mute children (those, that is, whose brain has not
been damaged) play at make believe, invent symbolic games and a language of gestures?”
(p. 93)

Inner Speech
Vygotsky’s answer to the problem of the relation of thought and word included a
separate plane of thought with its own structure, thus locating the problem in the transition
from that plane to speech. Vygotsky (1962b) exemplified this process in the study of inner
speech. Inner speech, without vocalization, is addressed to oneself, and differs from
external speech addressed to others. In his view egocentric speech precedes inner speech,
but both have similar structures and serve similar intellectual functions (Vygotsky,
1962c). Egocentric speech begins to fade at school age when inner speech starts to
develop, suggesting that the one changes into the other. Egocentric speech is entirely
intrapsychic and has no communicative value. Vygotsky views this as a transitory
phenomenon from interpsychic to intrapsychic functioning, differentiating speech for
oneself from speech for others. Language starts from a form of interpersonal (and
preverbal) communication to the more private form of inner speech that resembles social
speech, except for the predominace of sense, so that all the functions of language start as
aspects of an interpersonal exchange of meanings, especially with the mother, and are
gradually internalized to become intrapsychic. Thus, linguistic categories and especially
social forms of self-reference contribute to shaping the sense of self. This process seems
to serve certain functions of a developing mental orientation and conscious understanding
of both self and others.
In this he differed from Piaget: for Piaget egocentric speech reflects the inadequacy of
social development and fades away to be replaced anew by inner speech in the course of
socialization; in contrast, Vygotsky (1962b) sees it as because of the insufficient individ-
ualization of social speech and as evolving into inner speech.16 He concluded that inner
speech was not simply speech without sound, but that it was a separate speech function
with its own peculiar syntax.17 Unlike external speech, it seems disconnected and
incomplete. Regarding egocentric speech, he commented: “The child talks about the
things he sees or hears or does at a given moment. As a result, he tends to leave out the
subject and all words connected with it, condensing his speech more and more until only
predicates are left. The more differentiated the specific function of egocentric speech
becomes, the more pronounced are its syntactic peculiarities—simplification and predi-
cation” (p. 205).
This led to distinguishing specific semantic structures of inner speech: first is the

16
Vygotsky also had his difficulties and reservations about Piaget’s notion of egocentric
speech; see Vygotsky (1962c). He drew the basic distinction in these terms: “Thus our schema of
development–first social, then egocentric, then inner speech– contrasts. with Piaget’s sequence–from
nonverbal autistic thought through egocentric thought and speech to socialized speech and logical
thinking. In our conception, the true direction of the development of thinking is not from the
individual to the socialized, but from the social to the individual” (pp. 19-20). He (Vygotsky, 1962c)
noted in this connection that the child’s earliest preverbal responsiveness to the sound of the human
voice suggests a social component even in the preintellectual phase of speech development in the
first year.
17
Vygotsky (1962c) had suggested that the grammar of inner speech, oral speech, and written
speech could be differentiated; as he put it, “One might even say that the syntax of inner speech is
the exact opposite of the syntax of written speech, with oral speech standing in the middle” (p. 99).
232 MEISSNER

predominance of sense over meaning—sense derives from context and changes in differ-
ent contexts, while meaning remains stable through any changes in sense; second, it
follows that word and sense are more independent than word and meaning—as Vygotsky
concluded, “In inner speech, the predominance of sense over meaning, of sentence over
word, and of context over sentence is the rule” (p. 206). Third is “the way in which senses
of words combine and unite—a process governed by different laws from those governing
combinations of meanings. The senses of different words flow into one another—literally
“influence” one another—so that the earlier ones are contained in, and modify, the later
ones. In inner speech, the phenomenon reaches its peak. A single word is so saturated with
sense that many words would be required to explain it in external speech. No wonder that
egocentric speech is incomprehensible to others” (pp. 206 –207). The analyst should find
this formulation resonant with the implications of the fluidity and subjection to dream
mechanisms characteristic of the unconscious and primary process. We might wonder to
what extent, in terms of this discussion, the unconscious and related dream phenomena are
not predicated in terms of the sense of related words rather than the meaning.
Vygotsky (1962b) concluded that inner speech was an automonous speech function
and a distinct plane of verbal thought distinct from external speech. Further the relation
between them was complex; as he explained: “It is evident that the transition from inner
to external speech is not a simple translation from one language into another. It cannot be
achieved by merely vocalizing silent speech. It is a complex, dynamic process involving
the transformation of the predicative, idiomatic structure of inner speech into syntactically
articulated speech intelligible to others” (p. 208). And again: ‘[W]e came to the conclusion
that inner speech develops through a slow accumulation of functional and structural
changes, that it branches off from the child’s external speech simultaneously with the
differentiation of the social and egocentric functions of speech, and finally that the speech
structures mastered by the child become the basic structures of his thinking” (1962c, pp.
50 –51).

Meaning and Sense

We can conclude that one of the more salient distinctions Vygotsky made in his
explication of inner speech, was the differentiation between the sense and the meaning of
words; as Adams (1972) noted: “The sense encompasses all the psychological processes
aroused by the word. It is much more fluid and protean than the meaning. In inner speech
words are “saturated with sense” (p. 12).18 I would infer that this way of looking at inner
speech conveys a sense of a penumbra of associations, including other meanings and
affects, that color the ultimate meaning expressed in the word, and which are implicit in

18
The distinction of sense from meaning seems to parallel William James’ notion of the fringe
of meaning accompanying all units of language–see the discussion in Boothby (2001). Also relevant
is Peirce’s (1902) threefold categorization of signs as icon, index, or symbol. Although these are
often overlapping, the icon refers to the object by resemblance, the index by reason of some
connection with the object–as physical effect of the object, for example–and the symbol by way of
understanding of meaning, whether natural or conventional. Only the symbol necessarily involves
the use of language, but, as Goetzmann and Schwegler (2004) note, all three are specified as signs
that make it possible to translate even nonverbal forms of communication in semiotic terms. See
further discussion of the use of these terms in analytic discourse in Muller (1996). The resulting
tendency to regard all forms of communication as equivalently linguistic or symbolic is more
confusing than clarifying in my view, reflecting, as far as I can see, an effort to extend the linguistic
umbrella to include nearly everything in human symbolizing activity as well as in the analytic
process.
 LANGUAGE IN DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF II 233

verbal communications of all kinds, but especially in the analytic dialogue. Vygotsky
(1962c) described the relation of sense and meaning in these terms: “Meaning is only one
of the zones of sense, the most stable and precise zone. A word acquires its sense from the
context in which it appears; in different contexts, it changes its sense. Meaning remains
stable throughout the changes of sense. The dictionary meaning of a word is no more than
a stone in the edifice of sense, no more than a potentiality that finds diversified realization
in speech” (p. 146).19
Along similar lines, Rizzuto (2002) cites the French psychologist Paulhan (echoing
Vygotsky) describing the sense of a word as “the sum of all psychological events aroused
in our consciousness by the word. It is a dynamic, fluid, complex whole. A word acquires
its sense from the context in which it appears; in different contexts it changes its sense.
Meaning [in the dictionary sense] remains stable throughout the changes in sense” (p.
1327). I would add that the resonances of the sense of the word are aroused more at
unconscious rather than conscious levels. Moreover, as Wilson and Weinstein(1992)
added: “Word sense always includes the social and affective aspects of word meaning, the
potential from which a word derives its semantic force. When a word is spoken, it
inevitably enters the plane of word sense, but reflects the underlying word meaning which
can never be fully articulated. The archeologist of personal history can discover keys to
the developmental history of the individual lying in the multiple word sense and the more
stable word meanings that exist behind the manifest presentation of a word” (pp.
370 –371).
Thus, the word in effect concretizes the meaning, but in so doing captures only some
part of the sense, which can remain unexpressed but nonetheless active.20 As Thass-
Thienemann (1973) noted: “The lexical meaning looms on the surface of language. As
used in speech, it represents only a small segment of the whole meaning complex. The
implications and connotations remain in the subconscious or unconscious” (Vol. I, p.
76).21 Litowitz (1978), in this connection, had called attention to Freud’s (1959) com-

19
Vygotsky’s view seems to resonate with Lacan’s concept of meaning in terms of the
arbitrary connection of signifier and signified, as not referring to a particular signified but to a chain
of signifiers in an open and progressive discourse that never reaches closure. He referred to this as
a continuous sliding of the signified under the signifier. As Richardson (1986) explained: “The
constant movement not only makes all meaning tentative but comports an element of distortion as
well. And this is true even of our conscious discourse. Add to this the fact that an unconscious
discourse, the discourse precisely of the Other, infiltrates our conscious discourse, insinuating
hidden signifiers that distort it further. Hence, the importance of the lapses, clang-associations, the
double entendres that permeate it” (p. 76, italics in original). This constant shifting and sliding of
meaning is closely related to Derrida’s notion of deconstruction – specifically the difference that he
sees as characterizing language, involving the difference of the sign from other signs and the delay
in the continuing postponement of meaning. Thus, difference is the source of the dissemination of
meaning. See Holland’s (1999) clarifying discussion of deconstruction in relation to analysis.
20
There is reason to think that these components of sense and meaning are in some degree
anatomically diverse and can be neurologically separated. Sacks (1970) pointed out that severe
aphasics can retain the sense component even though they completely lose the meaning aspect, but
in contrast other forms of neurological deficit, more correctly described as suffering from a form of
agnosia, have the opposite configuration: “For such patients, typically, the expressive qualities of
voices disappear–their tone, their timbre, their feeling, their entire character–while words (and
grammatical constructions) are perfectly understood. Such tonal agnosias (or “aprosodias”) are
associated with disorders of the right temporal lobe of the brain, whereas the aphasias go with
disorders of the left temporal lobe” (p. 83).
21
Whorf (1956) made a similar distinction between the phenotype and the cryptotype of
individual word meanings–the phenotype representing the overt lexical meaning and the cryptotype
234 MEISSNER

ments on the ambiguity of speech as “nothing other than a counterpart to the twofold
determination of symptoms, and, like them, arise from compromises between the con-
scious and the unconscious. It is simply that this double origin is more easily noticed in
speeches than, for instance, in actions. And when, as is often made possible by the
malleable nature of the material of speech, each of the two intentions lying behind the
speech can be successfully expressed in the same turn of words, we have before us what
we call an ’ambiguity’” (p. 85).
A similar perspective was advanced by Kovar (1994), citing the Jesuit linguistic scholar
Walter Ong (1981), who wrote: “A potpourri of impressions, images, words formed and
half-formed, snatches of dialogue, imaginative constructs, ‘insights,’ floods of feeling, mo-
ments of seeming stultification of all faculties, distractions fought off or welcomed or sought
for—all this and all the other innumerable goings-on in the consciousness when we are
“thinking” probably will forever elude total itemization. Thought is connected with words but
is not a chain of verbalization in all or even most instances (p. 149)” (Kovar, p. 524). To which
Kovar added: “Beyond all that, it is not philosophical news that any description of thinking is
necessarily and only a first person claim and that my thinking is for you a black box. Clearly,
thinking and speaking do not share the same formal properties, let alone enjoy a neat
point-by-point correspondence. If we could speak as we think we would be unintelligible,
certainly to others and probably to ourselves” (p. 524).
I would infer that there seems to be a degree of resonance between the implications of the
sense-meaning distinction and Lacan’s rendering of the imaginary and symbolic orders.
Linguistic communication of any kind depends on the symbolic order, in which concepts find
expression in words; he distinguished this from the imaginary order that is preverbal and deals
with the organization of images without benefit of language. But the imaginary is still
structured and thus distinct from “the fluctuating and fragmentary psychic world that precedes
it” (Leavy, 1978, p. 281).22 Along this line, Knapp (1983) had concluded: “To the extent that
thought and speech are molded by reciprocity and social learning, that is, by feedback, there
is truth in Lacan’s view that the ‘unconscious is the discourse of the other.’ This discourse
begins nonverbally, however, long before the beginnings of language as it is conceived in
Lacan’s Saussurian model. A view of the social nature of language, needless to say, does not
contradict but complements Chomsky’s that a thinking and speaking self also emerges along
lines determined by neural organization” (p. 455).23
Vygotsky (1962b) himself noted that word meaning was related to thought only when

the unconscious implications. Even before that, Sapir (1921) had observed “that language and
thought are not strictly coterminous. At best language can but be the outward facet of thought on
the highest, most generalized, level of symbolic expression” (p. 15).
22
See also Patsalides and Patsalides (2001).
23
In defending Lacan’s identification of the unconscious with language, Leavy (1978) explains
the seeming contradiction with Freud’s distinction between thing-presentations in the unconscious
and word-presentations in the preconscious: “[A]ll of the metaphors that appear in relationship with
the dream-element (or any other element in the speech of the patient or subject) have partial
overlappings of meaning and have evidently been evoked through the work of the primary process.
That is to say, the metaphors for the (unconscious) signified themselves undergo the fate of the
signified. I do not think we have to insert the word itself into the unconscious; what we have to see,
if Lacan is right, is that the structural possibilities which constitute the subject’s unconscious
experience–its “overdetermination”–are identical with those that give rise to language” (p. 287). For
further discussion of the transition in Lacan from image to thought see Boothby (2001). As Muller
(1996) explained, an essential note of the imaginary register is the one-to-one correspondence
between aspects of the object and its image, which contrasts with the arbitrary and multiple relations
among signs, meanings, and objects of the symbolic.
 LANGUAGE IN DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF II 235

embodied in speech, and then only when speech is connected with thought. As he
(Vygotsky, 1962c) put it: “Word meaning is a phenomenon of thought only in so far as
thought is embodied in speech, and of speech only in so far as speech is connected with
thought and illumined by it. It is a phenomenon of verbal thought, or meaningful
speech—a union of word and thought” (p. 120). When word meanings change, the relation
of thought to word also changes; further, at each stage of the development of word
meaning, the relation of thought and meaning varies. The relation of thought to word
involves a process of continuous movement back and forth, such that thought is not merely
expressed in words but arises from them. The movement in this interaction passes through
various planes and phases on its way to expression in words. As he (1962c) explained:
“The relation of thought to word is not a thing but a process, a continual movement back
and forth from thought to word and from word to thought. In that process the relation of
thought to word undergoes changes which themselves may be regarded as development in
the functional sense. Thought is not merely expressed in words; it comes into existence
through them” (p. 125).
Likewise, Piaget (1967), commenting on the independence and priority of thought
over language, wrote, “In short, if the child’s behavior prior to language is compared with
his behavior after the inception of language, it is tempting to conclude with Watson and
many others, that language is the source of thought” (pp. 170 –171). However, he then
pointed out that further reflection suggests that language does not bring about these
transformations. Symbolic or imaginative play, for example, appears about the same time
as language but independently, and contributes to the development of personal cognitive
and affective representations separately from social aspects of language and communica-
tion. Also deferred imitation, occurring in the absence of the object, and other forms of
mental imagery are equivalently forms of personal symbols serving as representations of
objects or events, functioning as links between sensorimotor and representational behavior
and developing independently of language even though leading to the acquisition of
language (Piaget, 1967). It is this symbolizing capacity, the ability to name things, which
is unique to human language. Along this line, Smith (1978) also noted that “Psychoana-
lytic theory assumes that the forerunner of the word is an image of the absent object and
that this image, no matter what its initial coenesthetic shape, may be said to also represent,
along with its associated affect, a need” (p. xxvi).
Summarizing Piaget’s concept of the development of language, Sinclair-de-Zwart
(1969a) pointed out that, for Piaget:

The sources of intellectual operations are not to be found in language, but in the preverbal,
sensorimotor period where a system of schemes is elaborated that prefigures certain aspects
of the structures of classes and relations, and elementary forms of conservation and operative
reversibility. The formation of representational thought is contemporaneous with the acqui-
sition of language; both belong to a more general process, that of the constitution of the
symbolic function in general. The symbolic function has several aspects; different kinds of
behaviors, all appearing at about the same time in development, indicate its beginnings. The
first verbal utterances are intimately linked to, and contemporaneous with, symbolic play,
deferred imitation, and mental images as interiorized imitations (p. 267).

Thus: “Thought has its roots in action; at the end of the sensorimotor period, and
before the appearance of language or of the symbolic function in general, the baby has
overcome his initial perceptive and motor egocentrism by a series of decentrations and
coordinations” (p. 268).
The first of these decentrations is found in the child’s engagement in the immediate
236 MEISSNER

environment in the form of action-schemata enabling him to attain practical aims in the
immediate space-time frame. Then, “Later on, his activity takes on another dimension:
cognitively, immediate success will no longer be the sole aim, but he will search for
explanations and will reflect on his own actions; affectively, he will seek not only
satisfaction, but also communication; he will want to tell other people about his discov-
eries, that now become knowledge of objects and events rather than reactions to objects
and events” (p. 268, italics in original). The first words, far from being signs in a
structured linguistic system, resemble symbols that can be loosely associated but remain
isolated representations of action-schemes, and particularly retain the mobility of symbols
as contrasted with the fixity of signs (Sinclair-de-Zwart, 1969b).
For Piaget, this transformation is not because of language since language is a symptom
of this change and not its cause, and accordingly is only part of the general symbolic
function. The distinction between private and social functions of language come into play
in the difference between symbols, which the child invents as giving personal meaning to
his play, and signs which are social, arbitrary, and conventional. Consequently, for Piaget
language is not a sufficient condition for intellectual operations, and may well not be a
necessary condition for any but formal intellectual operations. As he (Piaget, 1967)
summarized: “As language is only a particular form of the symbolic function and as the
individual symbol is certainly simpler than the collective sign, it is permissible to conclude
that thought precedes language and that language confines itself to profoundly transform-
ing thought by helping it to attain its forms of equilibrium by means of a more advanced
schematization and a more mobile abstraction” (p. 173).
Even with respect to more advanced logical operations, specifically the concrete
operations bearing on classes and relations of objects, they develop independently of
language insofar as these operations are actions before they develop into operations of
thought. As Piaget (1967) pointed out: “Before he can combine or dissociate relatively
universal and abstract classes, such as the classes of birds or of animals, the child can
already classify collections of objects in the same perceptual field; he can combine or
dissociate them manually before he can do so linguistically. Language indefinitely extends
the power of these operations and confers on them a mobility and universality which they
would not have otherwise, but it is by no means the source of such coordinations” (pp.
174 –175). The situation is somewhat different in the further development of propositional
logic where language plays a more integrated role. However, beyond the decisive role of
language in the formation of such operations, Piaget contends that language does not of
itself give rise to them, but provides further structuring and embellishment of operations
originating and deriving from the level of concrete operations.
Accordingly, Piaget (1967) summarized:
Language is thus a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the construction of logical
operations. It is necessary because within the system of symbolic expression which constitutes
language the operations would remain at the stage of successive actions without ever being
integrated into simultaneous systems or simultaneously encompassing a set of interdependent
transformations. Without language the operations would remain personal and would conse-
quently not be regulated by interpersonal exchange and cooperation. It is in this dual sense of
symbolic condensation and social regulation that language is indispensable to the elaboration of
thought. Thus, language and thought are linked in a genetic circle where each necessarily leans on
the other in interdependent formation and continuous reciprocal action. In the last analysis, both
depend on intelligence itself, which antedates language and is independent of it (p. 179).
We may be forced to admit that the connection of thought with language is even more
complex— especially when the disconnection of thought and word or when the proposi-
 LANGUAGE IN DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF II 237

tional wording is employed to mask or divert the underlying thought. Pike (1966)
described subsegmental meanings, which are opposed to segmental meanings, that is,
meanings that are expressed in words corresponding to the thought. In contrast, subseg-
mental meanings refer to situations in which the meaning of a proposition is uncertain,
vague, puzzling, or connotes a different implication or meaning than is registered in the
manifest understanding of the words. As Pike noted, the term relates to the subsegmental
phonological features of phonation and tonality underlying segmental phonemes. He
commented: “It seems to have a vaguely related function in that the voice qualities
extending “under” and “throughout” speech reflect basic attitudes and intentions of that
speech. Similarly the vague subsegmental meanings and dispositions underlying speech
and in part prior to the specific mental formulations or overt motor verbalizations of
speech provide a covert dispositional background to the segmental meanings and explicit
intentions of speech” (p. 144). Poetic usage often evokes such subsegmental meanings,
exploiting the connotative implications of terms to achieve a poetic effect. Verbal
meanings can also be used to mask real intentions—as when a patient may express
gratitude to his analyst when the underlying thought content and feeling is resentment and
anger, and in other forms of verbal reaction formation. The real connotation of the words
can be grasped only indirectly from context or other influences.
In conjunction with this line of thinking about thought and language, Thass-
Thienemann (1973) suggested a curious hypothesis, namely that contemporary language
itself carries within it a current of meanings drawn from the history of countless
generations of the human use of language and shaped and transmitted in Western cultural
heritage. Thus, our language may contain meanings and implications that we do not
understand, but that at times come alive in our discourse as if beyond our control and as
if having a kind of life of their own. At such times, it seems as though Heidegger’s dictum
“Die Sprache spricht!” or Lacan’s view that language itself is the speaking subject seems
relevant (Hartman, 1981). As Thass-Thienemann (1973) commented:

It is perhaps too difficult for our Ego to admit that we are not completely free in our thought
processes or in choosing our verbal expressions, that we may say something inadvertently, not
being aware of it, or reveal something that we would rather withhold. It takes a long time until
we arrive at the disturbing conclusion that we are sometimes just performers or actors while
we speak; the script is made by someone else (Vol. II, p. 2).

These transgenerational meanings would be operative in the unconscious and can find their
way into expression in all the pathways by which unconscious significances become con-
scious, particularly in dreaming and neurotic symptom formation. Similar fantasies occur in
ancient mythology or folklore, a fact that prompted Jung to explore archaic myths and symbols
and puzzled Freud.24 The mechanisms of transmission are not biological-genetic but rather a
form of cumulative cultural transmission. As Thass-Thienemann (1973) explicates:

The language we speak as our mother tongue is our archaic heritage, and it is collective by
its very nature; we share it with our prehistoric ancestors. It is the vehicle of continuity. We
need not advocate an inherited “collective unconscious” mind for which we have no factual
evidence; however, we can stick to the empirical fact that the lore of our inherited verbal
expressions is archaic and collective by its very nature. It is inseparable from our thought
processes (Vol. II, pp, 7– 8, italics in original).

24
Some of the related issues are discussed in Freud (1987).
238 MEISSNER

Older meanings from previous generations become obsolete, forgotten, repressed, and
finally replaced by newer meanings, But Thass-Thienemann (1973) argued that by reason
of cumulative continuity the old meanings survive in some form within newer meanings;
thus, “These survival meanings, though forgotten and repressed, remain alive in the no
man’s land that is called preverbal, prelogical, or subconscious. In their twilight state they
may grow and change, crystallize around new ideas, associate with one another, for no
repressed meaning can remain isolated for a long time” (Vol. II, p. 9). Further: “The
emotional power stored in the subconscious language can be released at any time. It is
very near to the manifest surface in infantile speech, it may be acted out in religious
rituals, it might break through to the surface in dreams, and by an unexplained immediacy,
it emerges in regressive mental states as in schizophrenia. It would be deceptive to
suppose that we communicate simply on the conscious level. Beside and below the
intended conscious message, there is always some “noise,” the flowing back and forth of
an unintentional communication on the subconscious level” (Vol. II, pp. 10 –11).25 The
basic idea here may resonate with Vygotsky’s concept of sense where archaic and
unconscious significances persist.

Conclusions

These reflections allow us to draw the conclusion that not only does the capacity for
thinking precede the acquisition of language developmentally, but thought retains and
extends the scope of intention and significance beyond the range and access of linguistic
means and meanings into adult levels of understanding and expression. Following a
basically Vygotskian schema, in which the sense dimension of thought processes far
outstrips the meaning content of the word, it seems reasonable to say that the reality of
personal subjectivity and the complexity of the self-as-agent, especially with respect to its
prelinguistic but not presymbolic capacity for mental imagery and thought, is only
partially accessed and reflected in the use of language. In this sense, thought precedes and
exceeds the word, both developmentally and functionally. Even in the complex progres-
sion in the development of thinking—through forms of simple grouping, thinking in
complexes, the development of pseudocomplexes, potential concepts, and finally true
concepts— one might imagine the thought processes as struggling through succeeding
levels and forms of cognitive expression to find its way toward more and more effective
and comprehensible expression in words. In this process, a number of attempts at
grammatical consistency are evolved and abandoned, until finally the adult mode of
integrating thought and language are approximated. At no point, however, does language
successfully mirror the thought behind it.
One important conclusion, it seems to me, is that the thought processes that remain
active and alive in the interior depths of individual subjectivity are never fully exposed or
transposed into linguistic form, even within the mind of the individual thinker. The word,
simply put, does not and cannot mirror the thought. The sense that extends beyond the
meaning capacity of the word is as much a property of the self as the word and its
meaning; in fact, one might say that it is more exclusively the possession of the self since

25
Thass-Thienemann (1973) also notes that in this connection bodily symptoms also have
meaning– one of Freud’s fundamental discoveries–such that when individuals with functional
disorders are prevented form expressing emotions in words they may resort to a form of organ
language, which can resonate with and reflect unconscious linguistic residues.
 LANGUAGE IN DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF II 239

it remains buried in the self beyond the reach of linguistic formation or expression. While
this aspect of the functioning of the self remains unconscious, it is not unconscious in the
usual dynamic sense involving repression, nor, I would suggest, in the ordinary sense
implied in implicit memory that tends to be preconscious more than unconscious. They
remain active, nonetheless, in the self-as-agent as part of the deeply buried unconscious
residues of infantile and early dialogic experience that has never been and never will be
conscious. Consequently, as the thought is focused and narrowed into the compass of the
word, the thought itself as consciously negotiated is constrained and concretized into
symbolic and communicable form. The further implications of the dichotomy and differ-
entiation between thought and word for the understanding and function of personal
pronouns is discussed in Part 3 (Meissner, in process b) of these essays.

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