Can there be such thing as a “hopeless” language user

Abstract

Hope is a feeling – unlike pain, fear or desire – only to be found among subjects
who already master a language. It seems fair to ask, therefore, whether people
who speak languages much different from our own can also feel hope: perhaps we
shall find that the mental repertoire of human beings happens to be differently
shaped according to differences in their native languages. In this paper I will
try to approach the question of conceptual relativity drawing on some of
Wittgenstein’s remarks about mental concepts and Davidson’s radical
interpretation.