"mentalese" meaning in English

See mentalese in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˌmɛnt(ə)lˈiːz/ [Received-Pronunciation], /ˌmɛn(t)l̩ˈiz/ [General-American] Audio: En-uk-mentalese.oga Forms: mentaleses [plural]
Etymology: From mental + -ese (suffix forming adjectives and nouns describing, among other things, languages). Etymology templates: {{glossary|adjective}} adjective, {{glossary|noun}} noun, {{suffix|en|mental|ese|pos2=suffix forming adjectives and nouns describing, among other things, languages}} mental + -ese (suffix forming adjectives and nouns describing, among other things, languages) Head templates: {{en-noun|-|s}} mentalese (usually uncountable, plural mentaleses)
  1. (philosophy, psychology) A hypothetical non-verbal language in which concepts are represented in the mind. Tags: uncountable, usually Categories (topical): Languages, Philosophy, Psychology Synonyms: Mentalese Translations (hypothetical non-verbal language in which concepts are represented in the mind): mentalees (Estonian), mõttekeel (Estonian), mentalais [masculine] (French), Mentalese [neuter] (German), Mentalesisch [neuter] (German), Gedankensprache [feminine] (German), διανοουμενίστικα (dianooumenístika) (Greek), διάλεκτος διανοουμένων (diálektos dianoouménon) [feminine] (Greek), mentalese [masculine] (Italian), mentalesiska [common-gender] (Swedish)

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

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          "ref": "1977, P. G. Patel, “The Left Parieto-temporo-occipital Junction, Semantic Aphasia and Language Development around Age Seven”, in Linguistics: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Sciences, volume 15, number 196, Berlin, New York, N.Y.: Mouton de Gruyter, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 45:",
          "text": "Translationists are said to treat the coding of thoughts in ‘Mentalese’, whose structure is already known, into a natural language, just like translating a natural language, say Russian, in terms of another known language, say English (G 282). Incorporationists point out the circularity of (36b) because Mentalese, supposed to be intrinsically intelligible, is just English or some other variety of a natural language, and the translation maneuver only postpones the problem, [...]",
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          "ref": "1979, Gavriel Salomon, “Cultivation of Mental Skills through Symbolic Forms”, in Interaction of Media, Cognition, and Learning: An Exploration of how Symbolic Forms Cultivate Mental Skills and Affect Knowledge Acquisition (Jossey-Bass Social and Behavioral Science Series), San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass Publishers, →ISBN; republished Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1994 (2009 printing), →ISBN, page 121:",
          "text": "But where does mentalese come from? If it is learned, then what is it related to in the preceding mentaleses? To avoid endless regress, [Jerry] Fodor postulates an internal language that is innate, a claim that he himself calls \"horrendous\" and \"scandalous,\" yet inescapable.",
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          "ref": "1990, Patrick de Gramont, “The Problem of Representation”, in Language and the Distortion of Meaning (Psychoanalytic Crosscurrents), New York, N.Y., London: New York University Press, →ISBN, page 53:",
          "text": "[A]re natural languages merely vehicles for the communication of mentalese? Or does language itself play a role in the formation of our thought? The question is called critical, since a positive response to the latter (language does play a role) would call into question the assumption that all meaning is reducible to mentalese.",
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          "text": "[I]t is probably misleading to talk about the language of thought, or to talk about ‘Mentalese’, as if it were a single representational system. We should more properly, in the context of a thesis of massive mental modularity, talk about languages of thought, or Mentaleses.",
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          "text": "Translationists are said to treat the coding of thoughts in ‘Mentalese’, whose structure is already known, into a natural language, just like translating a natural language, say Russian, in terms of another known language, say English (G 282). Incorporationists point out the circularity of (36b) because Mentalese, supposed to be intrinsically intelligible, is just English or some other variety of a natural language, and the translation maneuver only postpones the problem, [...]",
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          "text": "One suggestion is that there is a de facto correlation between words or sentences of natural language and expressions of mentalese and between the logical relations among the former and the causal relations among the latter. This is a curious idea. The alleged correlation is not empirically grounded.",
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          "text": "[I]t is probably misleading to talk about the language of thought, or to talk about ‘Mentalese’, as if it were a single representational system. We should more properly, in the context of a thesis of massive mental modularity, talk about languages of thought, or Mentaleses.",
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      "code": "et",
      "lang": "Estonian",
      "sense": "hypothetical non-verbal language in which concepts are represented in the mind",
      "word": "mentalees"
    },
    {
      "code": "et",
      "lang": "Estonian",
      "sense": "hypothetical non-verbal language in which concepts are represented in the mind",
      "word": "mõttekeel"
    },
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      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "hypothetical non-verbal language in which concepts are represented in the mind",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "mentalais"
    },
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      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "hypothetical non-verbal language in which concepts are represented in the mind",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "Mentalese"
    },
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      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "hypothetical non-verbal language in which concepts are represented in the mind",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "Mentalesisch"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
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        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "Gedankensprache"
    },
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      "sense": "hypothetical non-verbal language in which concepts are represented in the mind",
      "word": "διανοουμενίστικα"
    },
    {
      "code": "el",
      "lang": "Greek",
      "roman": "diálektos dianoouménon",
      "sense": "hypothetical non-verbal language in which concepts are represented in the mind",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "διάλεκτος διανοουμένων"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "hypothetical non-verbal language in which concepts are represented in the mind",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "mentalese"
    },
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      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "hypothetical non-verbal language in which concepts are represented in the mind",
      "tags": [
        "common-gender"
      ],
      "word": "mentalesiska"
    }
  ],
  "word": "mentalese"
}

Download raw JSONL data for mentalese meaning in English (8.8kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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