This prize was endowed in 1966 by S.E Edwards, father of C.J.B. (1947-54). E.L. (1949-57) and R.B (1952-58) , in memory of his father who had lived in Faversham Kent and who had a great love for the written and spoken word. Tom won the prize for 2018. The text of his speech appears below.
I ask you to reflect on your thoughts, right now. Not on what they are so much but rather how amazing the ability to process and understand our thoughts is. Are you thinking in English, another language perhaps? Are you adhering to grammar rules and sentence structures as you have learnt from others? Not yourself. Why is that? Why are you thinking in a language that you were not born with, is not yours, a language you have very little to do with other than speak it? Why is it the most intimate possible thing that you can have as a human, your thoughts, are dictated almost completely by the rules of others who have come before you? Had the roll of the dice been different you could be thinking in Amharic or Arabic. Maybe you are. Now you may be able to do some thinking without language, but language is what lets us know that we are thinking, allows us to process thought. As such, languages ability to allow us to reflect on the acts of the mind itself is what makes the human language not only the best as identified by Coleridge, but also one of the most important aspects of our very human existence.
But almost all living beings have a system of communication, so what is it that makes the human language ‘the best’ and allows us to be so unique as a species? As far as the pure biological method of language, I don’t believe we stand up as all that impressive as a species. We have bats that can identify each other through frequency alone, bacteria that communicate through chemical reactions, snakes that communicate through infrared images and echidnas and platypus’s talk through the use of electric fields. But all of these extraordinary means of communication pale in comparison to us as they lack the key aspect of our language that makes it so unique in the animal kingdom. Through our language we are able to describe what is not here in the present or what may have never tangibly existed. We are the only species able to talk about things that are remote in space or time from where the talking goes on. In linguistics, this concept is called displacement. The only other animal proven to be able to communicate the existence of something outside of the present time period is the honeybee. But a bee can only communicate the location of the most recent food source it has visited. It cannot communicate an idea about a food source at a specific point in the past, nor can it speculate about food sources in the future. By its very nature the best part of the human language rests in the fact that it is the only way in which living beings can even reflect on the existence of the mind. In regards to understanding the existence of the past or any possibility of a future we are alone as a species…
We are the only species that can comprehend the concept of the mind. But if this were not amazing enough, to understand our own mind and displaced ideas, we are also able to attribute beliefs, intents, desires, emotions and knowledge to others, as well as understand that others have beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives that are entirely different from our own. This is the very basis of our empathy. The understanding that we are all alike in some regard. The understanding that we are all human and possess the ability through language to reflect on the aspects of the mind itself. So why is it with this unique ability, the only animals to truly comprehend the existence of another like-minded being, that we are also the only species that’s biggest threat to its’ own survival is it self? Perhaps there is a deficit in our ability to empathise derived from the limits of language. That although we believe ourselves to be able to understand each other’s motives and thoughts and communicate this fact on a daily basis to fellow humans, we are strictly confined by our language in the ability to completely convey the reflection of our own minds and understanding the reflections of others. As such we will always be capable of justifying the destruction of another fellow human when need be.
To explore these limits of our language to portray our reflections on the mind to others I need to look no further than my own inability to understand my graduation. In a mere seven days my time at The King’s School will have come to an end. My last ever period two on a Friday has been spent talking to you. But as I get ready to leave I cannot truly comprehend what it is I will feel when I finish. I cannot comprehend the end of six years of my routine, seeing my friends on a daily basis, going to class. I can talk to others who have been through the exact same process, have come out the other side, I might even have a very good idea of what is coming but until I experience of myself I will not know what my mind will feel and I will also be unable to truly convey this feeling to others once I have reflected upon it. Now transfer this to any number of possible situations, beliefs and experiences that you have tried to convey to others or as others have tried for you and no doubt fell well short of the mark. Now apply the shortcoming to every human who has ever existed. Through human language we can reflect on the acts of the mind itself but will always fall short of conveying these reflections to others.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge no doubt encountered the shortcomings of language’s ability to convey our reflections to others. Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’ sought to portray to others his profound spiritual reflection upon experiencing an opium induced dream. Coleridge wanted to convey the profound discovery he had made to others through his artistic use of human language in the form of an epic poem Of 300 lines in iambic tetrameter and alternating rhyme scheme. Alas at a mere 54 lines Coleridge was famously interrupted by ‘The person from Port Lock’. Likewise, just upon beginning a hundred-page exposition on the nature of the imagination in his ‘Biographia Literaria’ Coleridge claimed again to have been interrupted by a letter from a friend. It was admitted much later that the ‘friend’ was the author himself. Despite his appreciation with language’s allowance of time to reflect on the acts of the mind itself, Coleridge took to giving up in conveying this to others. Perhaps this was because Coleridge found little receptiveness for his philosophy in the England of that time but as surmised by English poet Steve Smith “The truth is I think; he was already stuck.”
Despite its’ shortcomings, our human language is what allows us to reflect on the mind, the most distinguishing factor that makes us human. And with ample reflection on not only our minds but the minds of others through language there is no reason we cannot one day hope to truly convey to others what it is that makes us, us.
Thomas Walsh October 2018
Thomas Walsh 21 