Language and thought

The occurrence of language raises some interesting questions about the brain. Is it like a general purpose computer, with language production being just one of its abilities? Or does language form the basis of our thought - an idea called the linguistic relativity hypothesis (LRH). In Language and Thought Nick Lund gives a detailed look at such questions. There's a lot packed into this short book, and it's highly suitable for its target audience, that is students in higher education who are studying psychology and related subjects. However, I felt it was less suited to the general reader who has an interest in these questions.

As well as considering various versions of the LRH, Lund looks at language acquisition and then goes on to examine the thought processes we use in solving problems and making decisions. I felt that a final chapter linking together the 'language' and 'thought' sections would have been useful, but instead the final chapter gives advice to the reader on how to approach exams in the subject, emphasising that this is meant to be used as a textbook. I also felt that even a textbook could be lightened up a bit - for instance Lund talks about the use of neural networks to form past tenses without mentioning 'leefloag'.