I see that the most interesting idea in this chapter is the part that relates to “language and thought.” As Culler says that there is a theory that says “language expresses the existing ideas by providing methods for this.” So language and thought interact in many significant ways, thought comes first, while language is an expression of what we think. Also each specific language has its own influence on the thought and action of its speakers. Likewise, according to Culler, Expressing ideas that we think are easy and natural in our language may require a great effort from us to express them in another language. This brings us to an important point, anyone who has learned more than one language is struck by the many ways in which languages differ from one to another. I think that this part reminds me of myself when I started learning languages other than Arabic. Sometimes it was very difficult for me to express what I was thinking in English, I felt like my thoughts were frozen, and other times I couldn’t express them at all. Therefore, Culler mentions that literary works often try to reconfigure ideas in order to be able to express things that we did not expect to think of before. The relationship between language and thinking is often a strong one, but literature generates other ideas so we can see a different reality.

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