小孩子是先有思想才有語言？還是先有語言才有思想？

有許多人認為小孩子在學習語言之前，就已經知道一些東西了，小孩子只是不知道名稱而已。Fodor (1975)認為這樣子的觀點把所有語言學習都當成是二語學習了。在還沒接觸詞語(例如：華語)之前，小孩子已經可以和詞語對應的概念，它是將簡單的概念以有系統的方式組織起來，是謂「思考的語言假說」(Language of thought hypothesis)或者心理語(mentalese)。

然而，「(『所有』的)思想都能自外於語言而存在」這樣子的說法在認知科學的領域中並不是主流的觀點。
語言學家和人類學家認為語言影響了思考；而發展心理學家則因為12月大和24月大的小孩在詞語和心智是同時增長的情況下，而為此困擾。通常他們會這麼解釋：詞彙是思考、想法的結晶，因此認知越發展，就會詞語就會越多；而演化的觀點則認為非人類的動物因為沒有詞彙，所以心智受限。人類之所以特別，就是因為人類能夠透過語言去思考。(Dennett, 1996; p.17)曾說：

Perhaps the kind of mind you get when you add language to it is so different from the kind of mind you can have without language that calling them both minds is a mistake.

把有語言的心智和沒有語言的心智視為是兩種不同的心智，這大概是一個錯誤的命題。

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