Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Second Edition

part of the mechanism that drives tools, part of us.
Language is not only necessary for the formulation of
thought, but is part of the thinking process itself’ (Bolinger,
1975, p. 236).
Language is related to reality and thought by the intricate
relationships we call meaning. For language to be able to
convey meaning the reality which it has to represent must be
segmented. We abstract things from their environment so
Figure 2

---

Language and Communication
28
that we can name them (the wind, a wave), even though in
many cases we would find great difficulty in defining, as
objects with definite boundaries, the things which we have
abstracted. When we isolate parts of reality through our
language, we necessarily leave out considerable detail. Thus,
whether we are responding to the sound of a cry, or the
appearance of a small hand among the pram covers, we can
use the word baby and expect our hearer to supply his
knowledge of the whole complex of perceptions really
involved in the thought of a baby.
Language presents reality in chunks which can be referred
to by chunks of language. The continuum of time, for
example, can be seen metaphorically as a dimension along
which events move in a straight line. Language, however,
imposes divisions on that line, in order to be able to refer to