Language and perception are closely connected, with words shaping perception and perception contributing to language. Sensory experience is filtered through both the senses and the mind, with language playing a role in analysis and dividing continuous experience into knowable bytes. New vocabulary or grammatical changes are required when current language is inadequate to describe or define an experience. The relationship between language and perception requires that language be changed when something in the environment becomes substantial enough that existing words simply won’t work.
Much has been written about the relationship between how people perceive the world and how they communicate their perceptions. The connection between language and perception is both subtle and profound. Philosophers and linguists might argue about the subtle points, but there is no doubt that words shape perception by providing a vehicle through which to experience it, and perception contributes to language by requiring new vocabulary or grammatical changes when current language is inadequate to describe or define an experience.
Perception requires a perceiver. This means that any raw experience is filtered through both the senses and the mind. It is possible to respond to direct sensory experience intellectually, but at a more basic level the response is thoughtless, instinctive, and immediate. For example, the reaction to a burn is to get away from the heat source, and the smell of something delicious makes your mouth water.
Sensory experience is also analyzed by the mind, and this is where the relationship between language and perception comes into play. Some people believe that all thinking is based on language and that it is impossible to think outside of language. Others believe that primal thinking is possible without packing it in vocabulary and grammar.
However, there is no doubt that analysis depends on language, and it is difficult to consider something for which there are no words. Words divide the continuum of continuous, undifferentiated experience into knowable bytes of sound that represent things, actions, and qualities. When we encounter something outside the established vocabulary, we tend to assign it to the existing word closest to it.
For example, the word orange includes a wide range of hues, from lighter and more yellowish to very deep and almost red. If a person encounters something man-made or in nature that contains some elements of orange and some elements of red, that individual will assign it to one category or another and henceforth think of that color as orange or red. red. So in the balance between language and perception in this case, language defines perception.
Similarly, when something in the environment becomes substantial enough that existing words simply won’t work, the connection between language and perception requires that language be changed. A clear example of this is how rapidly evolving technology has impacted people enough that a number of new words and phrases have entered the linguistic stream. The internet, websites and email have become a common language.
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