“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Generally speaking, a greater vocabulary means a greater
chance of life success, in whatever arena---car repair as much as research
science. A larger vocabulary gives us access to aspects of life that we would
not understand or appreciate without it. This was pointed out by E.D. Hirsch,
Jr, in his fine article, “A Wealth of Words,” in which he states that, “Studies
have solidly established the correlation between vocabulary and real-world
ability.” (City Journal, Winter, 2013).
In a sense a vocabulary is a set of “facts,” learned
associations between a word or words and something. The latter could be
abstract, as in love, or it could be tangible, as in my grey car. Some
educators disparage facts, meaning in one sense they disparage vocabulary. But
we can hardly think critically or creatively about something if we have no
facts regarding it. In the worst case, we may not be able to think about it at
all.
If I want to have a quality conversation with someone
about the novel Moby Dick, I need at
least a minimum vocabulary of literary methods, like plot, characterization,
and metaphor. Failing that, I resort to subjective sensations or simple opinions:
“I don’t like Ahab” or “Whale hunting is bad.” Such subjectivity and
opinionating can certainly lead to a fun conversation with two people of like
disposition, or to a potentially hostile interaction when there is not a
similar mindset. Either way, most of us engage in them from time to time.
But we cannot confuse that type of exchange with a one
having substance and subtlety. Opinionating is easy. Thoughtful conversation is
not. In social arenas like politics, where substance matters, we are seeing
people resort more and more to easy opinions lacking any subtlety or sound
back-up. If “facts” are used, they are biased ones that will provide the
outcome desired. It seems as though some people imagine that simple opinions,
often held in a death-like grip and bolstered with great emotion, are
equivalent to quality thinking. A bad sign for healthy societal outcomes, as is
evident today. How can we have in-depth conversations about important social or
ethical issues if we have lost, or choose not to use, vocabularies reflecting
the complexity of such issues?
A vocabulary is more than simply a bunch of words---it is
words that have meaning and can be applied in real-life situations to
understand and function in the world better. My ability to converse well about
interior design, for example, depends greatly on my color vocabulary. If I am
an interior designer and have words for relatively few colors, I will be at sea
in a conversation with other interior designers. I will be unable to follow the
images and ideas discussed as they use terms reflecting subtleties and nuances
that I cannot appreciate. With my interior design clients, for as long as I
might have them, I will be able to offer them advice only on an extremely
limited spectrum.
A vocabulary represents knowledge, an understanding about
the world at a certain level. Whether it’s about a novel or colors, how to plumb
a sink or program software, the more words we have of describing or
understanding something, the more sophistication and depth of knowledge we can
bring to a conversation, a task, or even to survival. The Sami people, who live
in northern Scandinavia, may have as many as 180 words relating to snow and ice,
according to the Washington Post. Inuit in Northern Canada have been hunting
seals for thousands of years, relying solely on their ability to interpret fine
differences in snow and ice to navigate, for which they had an extensive
vocabulary. Older hunters once passed on this knowledge to younger ones. Today
those younger hunters often use GPS systems for navigation. Reliance on this
technology has meant the loss of skill to navigate as the elders did,
occasionally resulting in the death of a younger hunter when his GPS system
failed. As the language of snow and ice fell away, the skills went with it. For
the younger hunters this meant that their world expanded in one way (the
vocabulary of GPS) and contracted in another (the vocabulary of snow and ice).
When I was an undergraduate at the University of
California at Berkeley in the 60’s the word “cool” was ubiquitous, and most of
us thought we knew what it meant. I once asked a friend what he meant in saying
that another fellow’s attire was cool. His response was pure 60’s
Berkeley---“Well, you know, it’s just cool.” But other friends possessed a
greater sense of the word’s meaning. Some of those included approval, a
generalized satisfaction with or an appreciation of something or someone, a recognition
of quality, or even of someone’s insouciance. Conversations were more expansive
because of this fuller vocabulary.
Of course, when using “cool” in a general sense, we all
understood what was meant, or at least something close to it. An elaborate
discussion of further meanings was not needed in many settings. Rather than
having a specific meaning, the word represented social glue, as though by using
the word we were all part of something larger than ourselves that only we
understood. It was a bonding mechanism, and not an intellectual exchange of
information and ideas.
The above examples illustrate Wittgenstein’s point. The
world is constrained by a person’s vocabulary, and by the willingness to use
it, just as it is by the boundaries of a person’s ability to use language
effectively in speaking and listening.
Life success, in the expansive meaning of the term, is
not necessarily a function of high education or a given level of intellectual
ability, nor of the vocabularies associated with those. It is a function of having
extensive enough vocabularies in critical areas of interest to us, whether we are
accountants or TV repairmen. We all choose, consciously or unconsciously, what
areas deserve our attention, and we adopt vocabularies suitable to those. And
no matter what those areas are, greater vocabularies generally improve our
chances of greater overall life success.
