Language and Thought

I recently reread the portion of Watson’s theory on language and thinking.  It is stated that his theories regarding these matters were the most controversial of his work.  Essentially what Watson did was try and explain how internal speech, or thought, came about.  He uses the analogy of a baby thats talks often to himself and is told to not talk so loudly then moves up the ladder in age and development until finally one is able to suppress speech and simply talk to oneself through years of conditioning.  I did not fully buy this theory and really enjoyed  Woodworth’s response on the topic.  What Woodsworth postulated was that he did not accept the equation thought=speech because one could not turn the equation around and say that speech=thought.  One can recite a familiar passage with no sense of its meaning and while thinking about something else entirely.  I cannot be too critical of Watson however, because this is an age old debate and no one has come up with a solution.