Language frees humans from stimulus-response by letting them name and define objects

Evidence

Human beings are very peculiar animals indeed. Their peculiarity stems largely, I think, from their linguistic capacity-a capacity which gives them a freedom unknown to other animal species but which at the same time causes them no end of difficulty. Language frees them from the slavery of simple reactivity, from the bondage of stimulus-response. It enables them to control and direct their action vis-a-vis an object (or situation) because it enables them to name it, to confer meaning upon it rather than merely to receive stimulus from it. … But in all human tongues this power to separate and thus liberate is present. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 86