Language In Thinking - Parveen Adams

Parveen Adams’ exploration of language in thinking delves into the intricate relationship between linguistic structures and the cognitive processes that shape our understanding of the world. Drawing from psychoanalytic theory and poststructuralist thought, Adams suggests that language is not merely a tool for conveying pre-existing ideas but a fundamental framework through which thought is constructed. The subject, in this view, is produced and structured by language, and thus, thinking itself is mediated by linguistic codes that precede individual consciousness. This echoes the Lacanian notion that the subject is ‘spoken’ by language, and that the unconscious is structured like a language—suggesting that our very capacity for rational thought is intricately bound to the symbolic systems in which we are immersed from birth.

Moreover, Adams highlights the tension between language’s ability to articulate thought and its simultaneous limitations. Language, while enabling the articulation of complex ideas, also circumscribes the ways in which we can think, often constraining or distorting the expression of subjective experience. In this framework, the gaps or slippages in language—what is unsaid or unsayable—become critical points for understanding how thought is shaped by the unconscious. By investigating these ruptures in the flow of linguistic expression, Adams invites a deeper interrogation of how meaning is produced and the limits of what can be consciously known or thought. Thus, language in thinking becomes not a neutral medium, but a site of dynamic tension, power, and even mystery.