A more systematic approach to language and cognition began in the 1920s. During the 20s and 30s Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf separately claimed that language is the main factor in the constructive process, that, in effect, language determines thought. Whorf claimed in his Collected Papers on Metalinguitics that language is the prime factor in objectification of reality. Language determines thought and certain aspects of it restrict our view of the world. A weaker form of the ‘language hypothesis’ does not insist that language determines thought, but that language predisposes the way people think.

During the 50s, when behaviourism was the intellectual fashion, there were not many studies on language and cognition. The stimulus-response-reinforcement model favoured by the behaviourists was applied to language acquisition by Skinner in his book Verbal Behaviour. According to Skinner, verbal behaviour can be acquired if the set of appropriate responses is frequently followed by reinforcement. Reinforcement, he claimed, is equally important after language has been acquired. The purpose and function of reinforcement is to maintain the strength of the response. Language acquisition and verbal behaviour are regarded as mechanical processes. Verbal behaviour can only develop in a social context, with the participation of another person or audience. The speaker learns to speak eventually only in the presence of a listener; the reinforcement that a speaker needs is absent or present when a listener is absent or present. This view treats language as a learning behaviour that can be changed or manipulated with the help of reinforcement, or deprivation, in other words ‘a specific controlling condition … control of verbal stimuli.’

Skinner presents three different types of behaviour which control the verbal stimuli: the echoic, the textual and the intraverbal. ‘Echoic’ behaviour is when the response consists of a sound pattern reproducing something very similar to the stimulus. It is established in the child through the special reinforcement that Skinner calls ‘educational’. Educational reinforcement is provided by institutions whose behaviour is influenced by economic reinforcement: for example, when a teacher gets some financial (or other) rewards for teaching the child how to acquire language effectively. ‘Textual’ behaviour relates to learning how to read. It too is established through educational reinforcement. The stimulus in this case is a text which may be in the form of pictures, formalised pictographs, characters or (more commonly) letters or symbols of an alphabet. ‘Textual’ behaviour describes the way people acquire the skill of writing. Writing behaviour has all the characteristics of ‘echoic’ behaviour, but expressed in visual rather than auditory terms. Three stages are distinguished: the stage of producing the necessary materials, the stage of making differentiated marks, and the stage of transmitting these marks to the reader.

In the case of intraverbal behaviour there is no correspondence between stimulus and response-produced, as in echoic behaviour or as in the correspondence between different dimensional systems as in the textual behaviour. This allows the consideration of all types of vocal and textual stimuli and responses in all combinations at the same time. Interestingly, Skinner regards translation as a ‘special case of intraverbal behaviour’.

Skinner’s approach to thought was abstract, not empirically based. His view was that the results of human thought can be most unpredictable and are therefore severely difficult to explain. So, the simplest and most satisfactory way of explaining thought is to consider it as a behaviour. Thought is not a secretive way of influencing the behaviour, but it is behaviour itself, the ‘sum total’ of the responses to the world and the environment the behaviour ‘lives’ in. He concludes: ‘When we study human thought we study behaviour.’

In the 60s the debate about language was between two conflicting positions. The behaviourist accounts of language and language-acquisition in terms of association, and the approach of Chomsky and his colleagues who presented a linguistic analysis strongly linked with psychology. Their basic argument was that the stimuli-response theory was highly irrelevant with respect to language acquisition. Being mainly interested in the syntactic forms of language they believed that the deep structures of sentences are abstract and inexplicable by the simplistic arguments put forward by the behaviourists. Their debate with the behaviourists, and the theoretical papers in which they criticized and cast doubt on their views, did not leave much room for attention to childhood development and how the processes of that development affect their language acquisition.

Piaget, although not a psychologist by profession (he started out as a biologist), showed a great interest in the way children think. He believed, in contradistinction to Sapir-Whorf, that thought determines language, a position since known as the ‘cognition hypothesis’. The basic difference between language studies in the 60s and Piaget’s approach was that Piaget’s interest was in children aged six and above, and investigated the first structured language during and shortly after the stage of two-word utterance. He discussed language and the thinking of the child, the language function, the questions that children put, and understanding between children.

Piaget and Chomsky came to be the most recognised and respected representatives of the cognitive movement; their work has inspired and influenced so many and to such an extent, that one can rightly speak of a school of thought within the field of cognitive studies. Chomsky had revolutionary and controversial views about language and thought sharply contrasted with anything that had come before. He claimed that every child has an innate knowledge system that contains abstract linguistic structures that are not taught rather, they are already part of the child’s system from birth. He hypothesized that under those circumstances, there must exist a set of grammatical rules that would produce syntactic descriptions for any sentence in any given language. Piaget on the other hand believed that a child must go through several stages to acquire an adult level of logical thought. The effect of the environment on a child’s thought and language is, for Piaget, crucial. Language is an extremely broad set of human capacities. Identical mental operations underlie one’s encounters with a wide range of materials and topics such as space, time, casualty and morality. So the later forms of thought can be located in earlier forms. Piaget examined the child and his mind as an active and constructive agent, that slowly gains knowledge and logic through developing cognitive processes. Chomsky’s view was different; he saw the mind as a set of pre-programmed units fully equipped, that need only a modest trigger from the environment to function. In other words Piaget considered human linguistic capacities as a product of a general ‘constructed’ intellectual development, whereas Chomsky insisted that they are a highly specialised part of the human genetic inheritance, largely separate from any other human faculty. They are, Chomsky said, a kind of an innate knowledge that has only to unfold. The Piagetian cognitive hypothesis claims that language derives from thought. Chomsky takes a radically different view, arguing that language is divorced from thinking. He claims that each human intellectual faculty is located in different areas of the brain, maturing at its own rate and through distinct processes. To make this statement more comprehensible, Chomsky used the analogy of bodily organs: he regarded the mind as a set of organs, like the liver or the lungs or the heart. A heart is not taught to beat, but matures according to its own genetic timetable. The same is true of ‘language’ as well as to other ‘organs of the mind’, that are programmed to function over time according to a genetic timetable.

Although both used and developed models provided by biology and logic, they showed interest in very different kinds of examples and explanations. Piaget tried to give a rich description of the stages that children pass through to achieve a higher level of knowledge. So he developed an elaborate technical vocabulary, rooted in biology, and he based his conclusions upon errors that children made when he gave them his famous challenging puzzles to solve. His ability to give convincing answers to the problems of the development of knowledge, and his hard work in collecting and synthesizing an enormous amount of data, are his big contribution to this field.

Chomsky’s contribution is no less important. His difference from Piaget is that he was not concerned to describe behavioural phenomena; his concern was the development of linguistic science and how its approach and methods could carry into the social sciences. His views of language as a part of an innate and universal system of knowledge and language are the same, had huge influence, although it is an hypothesis impossible to prove.

In October 1975, Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky were invited to express their ideas and present their theories in a meeting which took place at the Abbaye de Royaumont in France. The historical importance of this ‘rendezvous’ was noted by the psychology and linguistic community all over the world and even scientists from behavioural and empirical areas attended the occasion. Piaget and Chomsky exchanged views about language and cognition, but, as people who attended the Royaumont meeting commented, there was no agreed conclusion, only exploration of issues.

It is hardly surprising that no firm conclusions were reached at that meeting. The study of cognition is not an empirical study of given data or facts susceptible to quantitative measurement or experimentation. The subject-matter has to do with human psychology, where different views, theories, methods and experiments are used, different schools are created and several disciplines such as anthology, biology, philosophy etc. are involved together. Without ignoring the important contribution of schools such as behaviourism, psychoanalysis etc., only the further development of the cognitive movement appears likely to give satisfactory answers to issues that arise everyday about language and thought. The charm of uncertainty will draw the passion for further research that will lead from mere confusion to a new theory, a new argument for appraisal or debate.

Useful reading 

• Appel, M,H. (1977) Topics in Cognitive Development.
• Drorni, E. (1993) Language and Cognition: A Developmental Perspective.
• Massimo, P. (1979) Language and Learning.
• Skinner, B. (1957) Verbal Behaviour.
• Vasniadou, S. (1993) Language and Thought.
• Vhorf B.L. (1952) Collected Papers on Metalinguitics. 

Another approach to mannerliness is dealing with it under the categories of ‘mannerliness in Sharia’, ‘mannerliness in tariqa (the spiritual order), ‘mannerliness in knowledge of God’, and ‘mannerliness in attainment of truth’. The first means practising the Sunna (the way) of God’s Messenger upon him be peace and blessings, in all his acts saying and all that he approved, whether general or particular. The second means, together with utter submission to and perfect love of, the guide serving him, attending his discourses and refraining from objection to him. The third consists in preserving the balance between nearness to God and self-possession, between fear and hope, and awareness of self-poverty and impotence in the face of the Divine favours coming directly from God. As far the fourth, it is perfect attachment to God in complete detachment from everything other than Him, without any material or spiritual expectation and anxieties worldly or other-worldly.

In fact, Sufism means ‘mannerliness’; it consists in expressing the good manners proper to each occasion, each spiritual state, and each rank or station. However, only if a believer has been able to realize all of these good manners in his own self will he really he well-mannered in his attitudes and ways of behaviour. Apparent and superficial manners, such as have not been ingrained in his self and become an essential part of his nature, will mean no more than an outward show become permanent as habits. Nor is it worth anything in the sight of God, who judges a man by his inner world. With his expressive style, Mawlana Jalal al-Din describes mannerliness with its true and artificial aspects as follows:

For the people of the heart, mannerliness originates in a man’s inner world, for they are aware of secrets. As for the people of the flesh, they see mannerliness in the apparent behaviour of man, for God has hidden the secrets from them. We always ask God to enable us to be mannerly, because one who is unmannerly is deprived of Divine favours.

According to Abu Nasr al-Tusi, mannerliness could be summarized in the following three paragraphs.

1. The mannerliness of literary men who seek beauty and virtue in writing and speech, which is regarded as ‘gossip’ by the Sufis for it does not originate in the heart.

2. The mannerliness of those who represent the religion of Islam at the level of a pure spiritual life, which is regarded as consisting in refining the selfhood through disciplines, and the feelings through love and fear of God, and in meticulously following the religious commandments.

3. The mannerliness of those who through continuous self-control and introspection maintain purity at the level of neither imagining or conceiving of anything contrary to the awareness of always being in the presence of God and overseen by Him.

Those who have been able to attain to the truth have attached much importance to all kinds of mannerliness and tried their hardest to make it as an essential, ingrained part of their human nature. They have many wise sayings uttered in this respect, of which they have themselves striven to be the embodiments ill utmost sincerity. To cite a few examples:

Everything has an aspect of beauty and ornament, The beauty of man lies in mannerliness. There are men who, albeit of ignoble descent, are most noble due to their mannerliness.

The following is a jewel-like saying quoted from Imam ‘Ali, the cousin of the Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings:

Nowadays misfortunes are common, which is not to be wondered at. What is to he wondered at is how one could remain upright and maintain one’s integrity among so many misfortunes. Beauty is not that which the garment one wears add to him. Rather, it is the beauty of knowledge and mannerliness.

The following is from Awarif al-Ma’arif by Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi:

Belief requires absolute affirmation of Divine Unity, without which a man is not regarded as having a sound belief. This affirmation requires mannerliness without which one cannot be pious.

Truly, one without good manners cannot be pious, for the Prophets travelled their ways through mannerliness, and became each an elect in the Court of God.

In addition to what we have already said concerning the practical aspect of mannerliness or being well-mannered in behaviour, the following reflections are worth recalling:

It is mannerliness which a man should always wear: without good manners, one is as if naked.

Mannerliness is to be found in people through mannerliness. A student without good manners cannot be a learned one.

The order of the world is through mannerliness; again, through mannerliness is human perfection.

Expressive of purity in thought, uprightness in the heart, and a deep relationship with God, mannerliness in speech has been stressed for centuries in all schools which concern themselves with moral and religious education or with spiritual training.

Wahbi says:

Don’t open your mouth for idle talk, be well-mannered in your speech. Take care of what you may say so that afterwards you do not become uneasy.

Another voices his thought about mannerliness as follows:

Mannerliness is a crown from the light of God: wear that crown and he safe from every misfortune.

The words of Mawlana Jalal al-Din in praise of mannerliness are beyond compare:

Know that the soul in man’s body is mannerliness; the light of man’s heart and eyes is mannerliness. Man is from an elevated world, not from a loose one. This dome [meaning the world rotates on the axis of mannerliness, which is also its beauty and adornment. If you prepare your food on the head of Satan, know that it is mannerliness which will kill Satan. One who is deprived of good manners is not truly human, for the difference between men and animals lies in mannerliness. Open your eyes and see that the Qur’an, the Word of God, consists in mannerliness. I asked the intellect what belief was. It whispered to the ear of the heart that it was mannerliness.

Mannerliness with respect to good morals described as words and behaviour approved by Islam, and as expressed in the words, actions, and acts of approval of the Holy Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings, is beyond the scope of the present answer.

O God! Lead us to what You like and approve.

May God’s blessings he on our master Muhammad and all of his family and his Companions.