Language and Reality

The book on research methods in the social sciences continues to give food for thought. I was reading about how the classical view of language is it represents or articulates our concepts of reality and in the process reproduces and reflects reality. The modern view is that language is reality and while an independent reality exists, it is only rendered meaningful through language. But, what about experiences which we lack a language to describe. I immediately thought of anxiety/depression symptoms which exist in the grey area between physical sensations and mental feelings--they have a physical as well as mental manifestation. While experiencing the symptoms, especially for the first time, one often struggles to find the language to  describe what exactly one is feeling (used henceforth to refer to both sensations and feelings). Anxiety/depression have become catch-all phrases to describe a wide spectrum of unease. While labeling the feeling does help to reduce its potency, it does so by assuring the patient that what he or she is feeling is transient. "That dizziness is just anxiety, you don't have a brain tumour". But, the tactic being used here is attempted distraction, and not interpretation of the feeling to trace its roots. And just because we lack the language to come to terms with it, it doesn't become any less real, as anyone who has experienced anxiety will tell you.