Jamal Henderson is preparing to apply to colleges. He keeps his father, Michael, involved in the process because he values his opinion. They both agree that Jamal should attend a “good college.” But Michael feels hurt when Jamal starts talking seriously about urban universities in another state. He thinks his son has ruled out his own alma mater, the local campus of the state university system. Jamal and Michael have different thoughts about what a “good college” is. Their language and thoughts are related in their own minds, and each thinks he is using the term appropriately.

Your cognitive language is the system of symbols you use to describe people, things, and situations in your mind. It influences your language (Giles & Wiemann, 1987) and is related to your thoughts, attitudes, and the society in which you live (Bradac & Giles, 2005). Michael may think a “good college” is close to home, is involved in the local community, and offers small class sizes. Meanwhile, Jamal may think a “good college” presents the opportunity to live in a new city and to study with people from other countries.

Our thinking affects the language we use. But language also influences our thoughts. If you tell yourself that a coworker is an “idiot,” the word may influence your future impressions of him. To illustrate, if he’s quiet during a meeting, you might conclude that he knows nothing about the subject under discussion. On a much larger scale, we can have visceral reactions to the words or names assigned to people and places. For example, children assigned linguistically low-status names (like Alekzandra instead of Alexandra) tend to be treated differently by teachers, are more likely to be referred for special education, and are less likely to be perceived as gifted (Rochman, 2011). Indeed, the city of Stalingrad in Russia was renamed Volgograd because of the strong, negative reaction to a name associated with the violent dictator, Joseph Stalin (Roth, 2013).