Philosophers interested in problems, for example, about mind and knowledge, may frame their questions in various ways. They may ask directly about mind or knowledge; they may talk about the concept of mind or knowledge; or they may begin by asking how the words 'mind' and 'knowledge' are used. The belief that philosophical questions may be approached by asking questions about the use of words underlies what is sometimes called 'linguistic philosophy'.
(Antony Flew: A Dictionary of Philosophy, St. Martin's Press 1979)

language of thought. Following Aristotle some have argued that the significance of spoken words derives from intrinsically meaningful interior 'speech'. According to Ockham the propositio vocalis is posterior to and dependent upon the propositio mentalis. More recently Fodor has argued that thought is a form of symbol manipulation, and that language-learning involves the correlation of conventional symbols with those of one's innate mental language.
... First, parallels between the structures of thought and language are brought out in reports of each. ... each [mental] act seems to involve a relation to a sentence.
...that public language may be a vehicle for the expression of prior mental 'utterances'.
(Ted Honderich: The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford University Press 1995)

I tackle the problems of linguistic philosophy in Essay Thinking and Language, where I refute the key theses about the relation between mind and language:

Thinking is the primary act of the human mind and language is the expression of thinking through articulated sounds that bear a certain significance for congenial beings. Rational thinking only is dependent of language, because rational thinking is identical to language, and thus a reciprocally coextensive means of conceptualization. The higher philosophical thinking, and paranoetic or Transrational Thinking specifically, is independent of language, because noetic thinking needn't necessarily be expressed in language.
Therefore, language can only be a limitation for our rational or discursive thinking, because rational thinking is nothing else than language in our mind. We think the same way as we would express the thoughts as words in our language. We know, however, that rational thinking is only one small part of human thinking as such. Reason uses a much wider scope of ideas and principles, which transcend the possibilities not only of language but of rational thinking.
Language is a particularized structure, drawing heavily on our analytical way of thinking. The corresponding manner of thinking is rational thinking. Higher and more complex forms of thinking are not analytic or particularizing, but synthetic and holistic. Therefore language could not be the right means of expression. Complex processes of thinking cannot be transformed equally into language as it is the case with discursive thinking.

In Essay Notions of Mind and Thinking I analyze the concepts of 'mind' and 'thinking' in their linguistic usage and in relation to the nature of our mind and thought process.

1. a: the quality that distinguishes a vital and functioning being from a dead body.
b: a principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings (cf. vitalism).
c: an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction.
2. the sequence of physical and mental experiences that make up the existence of an individual.
3. spiritual existence transcending physical death
4. the period from birth to death.
(Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition)

1. The collective total of those properties that differentiate the living from the nonliving.
2. The actual state of being alive as manifested by the carrying out of various functions associated with life, e.g. metabolism, growth, reproduction and adaptation to the environment.
3. The time between inception and death.
(Arthur S. Reber: Dictionary of Psychology, Penguin 1985)

This, the distinguishing feature of organisms, is best thought of as involving some kind of complex organizatoin, giving an ability to use energy sources for self-maintenance and reproduction. Efforts to find some distinctive substance characterizing life have proven as futile as they have been heroic.
(Ted Honderich: The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford University Press 1995)

Leben (gr. bios, lat. vita). Das Wesen des Lebens besteht in naturhaftem oder geistigem Geschehen, es ist ein Werden, bzw. Tun und darum der ausserhalb solchen Vollzuges stehenden, bloss gegenständlichen Beobachtung nicht zugänglich. In der antiken Philosophie wird es aufgefasst als ousia autoteles 'Selbstbewegung'; ähnlich in der dt. Mystik: "Leben lebt aus seinem eigenen Grunde und quillt aus seinem Eigen" (sunder warumbe)..... lässt sich dasjenige, was das "organische" Leben (Organismus) im Unterschied zum "unorganischen" bildet, nur in seinen Äusserungen beobachten; es ist von Aristoteles zuerst als Entelechie bezeichnet worden.
Im Lichte der modernen Naturwissenschaft ist Leben "die erstaunliche Gabe eines Organismus, einen Strom von Ordnung auf sich zu konzentrieren und damit dem Verfall in atomares Chaos auszuweichen; im Gegensatz zum physikalischen Mechanismus, einem Ordnung aus Ordnung schaffenden Mechanismus, schafft der physikal. Organismus Ordnung aus Unordnung....
(J. Hoffmeister: Wörterbuch der Philosophischen Begriffe, Meiner Verlag, 1955)