Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A hypothetical language in which concepts and propositions are represented in the mind without words.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun philosophy, psychology A hypothetical non-verbal language in which concepts are represented in the mind.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

mental +‎ -ese

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Examples

  • Universal "mentalese" is a much more radical, minority view whereas universal grammar is to my mind very well established.

    Universal meaning GamesWithWords 2010

  • Psychology is the study of the mind, and the exclusion of "mentalese" would annihilate the discipline as we know it.

    Neurath on sociology Daniel Little 2009

  • Purportedly not directly about imagery, but deals with the closely adjacent topic of mental representations that are inherently perceptual in character, and argues that they are adequate to account for cognition, and explanatorily superior to “amodal” conceptions of representation (such as mentalese) For some recent supporting evidence, that also makes the link with imagery explicit, see Kan et al. (2003), and for some philosophical support see Nyíri (2001) and Prinz (2002).

    His Name Was Do Re Mi 2009

  • Some still argue this, I think Chomsky and Pinker argues that for language development that we are preprogrammed genetically in "mentalese", a universal grammar

    towards a fingernail definition of constructionism Bill Kerr 2008

  • Some still argue this, I think Chomsky and Pinker argues that for language development that we are preprogrammed genetically in "mentalese", a universal grammar

    Archive 2008-08-01 Bill Kerr 2008

  • Stich (1983) ” that we are able to perform cognitive tasks (e.g., think, remember information, and have beliefs) only because we are capable of storing information in our heads in a neural language (often called mentalese, or the language of thought).

    Platonism in Metaphysics Balaguer, Mark 2009

  • Ash'ari school attempted a compromise by saying that the word of God was manifested at different levels, including those of the Arabic Qur'an as well as its meta-lingual meaning known to God within himself, a sort of divine "mentalese", to borrow a term popularised by Stephen Pinker and other modern linguists.

    The Guardian World News Usama Hasan 2010

  • Others might argue that the idea is not actually this palimpsest of icon montages, but rather an abstract concept bound to it, informed by it but formulated in some other media of cognition, a mentalese.

    Notes on Notes Hal Duncan 2009

  • For the little girl, the incorporation of that new montage into the palimpsest, whether this is all that takes place or there is an extra step of compiling the palimpsest into mentalese, still results in a fundamental revision.

    Notes on Notes Hal Duncan 2009

  • Others might argue that the idea is not actually this palimpsest of icon montages, but rather an abstract concept bound to it, informed by it but formulated in some other media of cognition, a mentalese.

    Archive 2009-07-01 Hal Duncan 2009

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