540 Task 2: Does language shape the way we think?
By Richard Payne
A reflection on:
YouTube. (2017, June 7). Lera Boroditsky, how the languages we speak shape the ways we think. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGuuHwbuQOg&t=2066s
[13:48] Dr. Boroditsky describes an Australian Aboriginal tribe which uses the objective language markers of North, East, West, South for directions as opposed to relative left, right etc. I think this is a cultural adaption to the land expressed through language. It reminded me of a familiar experience but expressed as a cultural difference within the same language (English). For example, when my family emigrated to (flat) southern Ontario on which roads and concessions are laid out on a grid from their home in the windy hilly English countryside they were surprised that locals would give directions in this manner: “Go straight, turn west for two concessions, turn north go straight until you cross the tracks, and you’ll see it on the east side”. Therefore, I think language can adapt to geographic/cultural needs, and some languages are endemic to very specific niche cultural and geographical needs. Growing up there I always knew exactly which way north was. Now, living in BC I have a more vague idea of exactly where north is. A language like English has had to adapt to many environments and has many influences. I think it would be an interesting further study to take a couple of members of said Australian tribe to a different environment that had features that their flat dessert home doesn’t, and see how in their own language they describe their mental map of the area and give directions. Would they think about it differently based on their vocabulary?
[19:23] Dr. Boroditsky insinuates that Russian speakers can better differentiate shades of blue as their language affords them the distinction. English speakers have a blue from green distinction and Korean with a further yellow/green distinction. After having lived in both Japan and Korea myself I know that it is often said that the traffic light is blue (in their respective languages). Even though they have a word for green, they see that as blue. It is a strange concept that our eyes are seeing within the confines of the way we have defined the labels in the language which we use. Language is intertwined with thought especially the moment we need to communicate those thoughts with others to further develop them. Therefore, essentially most of us, think through language. I say “some people” because as I recently in the last few years learned that some people do not have an inner dialogue and don’t think in ‘words. Here is one (of many) such article that can be found for reference articulating that point.
[29:29] Dr. Boroditsky says “In English… we don’t strongly differentiate between things that are accidental and intentional”. Meaning that the same phrase could be correctly used to describe two different events one of which is accidental and one of which was purposeful. This as opposed to Spanish [30:03] in which Dr. Boroditsky describes that “The construction of ‘I did something’ insinuates that it was intentional. Dr. Boroditsky refers to research as to how this affects how we remember an incident essentially did we pay attention to the thing or the person when it was an accident vs intentional. I have to say as an English speaker, I didn’t fall into the expected box here. In the accidental scene the actor threw his arms up as the balloon popped and distracted me from his face. The research however would seem to indicate that English speakers remember the person in the accidental version as well but can’t remember if it was an accident far more than other languages. The focus of this experiment is on memory, but I also wonder how it translates to blame. I am curious to know if there could be any correlation as to how this influences legal proceedings in places with different languages. The research Dr. Boroditsky refers to can be found here.
[35:00] Dr. Boroditsky explains “how we know language is causal”. She describes an experiment in which English speakers in a control group are bombarded with non-agentive (passive) language and the other group of English speakers are bombarded with agentive language. This is followed by applying the same afore mentioned experiment involving memory, which goes on to prove mailability of memory or thought based on descriptive language at top of mind. Wow! This is very fun research that could give one all sorts of thoughts of brainwashing etc. For me however, my mind goes back to this idea of agentive or non-agentive language. She uses the examples of in her YouTube video talk.
For me personally, I learned, to the best of my ability, two new languages as an adult (very different from learning as a child) both very different from English and they are Japanese and Korean. In both of those languages I can remember being confused in instances where I had understood every word of the sentence spoken to me, but I had to ask “wait, are you referring to me or you? Or who are we talking about?”. As an English speaker I rely on the subject being stated. In Korean or Japanese which in this instance are higher context, it can in some cases be rude to directly say ‘you’ or conceded to say ‘I’. This is a bit different to exactly what Dr. Boroditsky is referring to here, but that is where it brought be in my own life experience with such a difference.
[35:00] Dr. Boroditsky discusses different counting systems. The Papua New Guinea system with a base 27 that uses corresponding body parts for number names was incredible. That seems unimaginably complicated. And just as astonishing at [35:36] the introduction of an Amazon language without numbers is something I would never have imagined. To think that a medium of communication could have evolved without a way of identifying how many multiple objects are present boggles the mind and there are so many more interesting questions that bubble up as a result.
[56:49] Audience question: “Do you think that the different way people use the language now by texting is changing the way they think?” I thought this was a great question as Dr. Boroditsky acknowledged, and not to say she was wrong in her answer (which was essentially to brush it off as nothing more than fear of anything new) but I would bet that if she wasn’t on the spot and had chance to put more thought into it she may have answered differently. I think it would have been smart for her to leave the door open after that statement with something like: having said that, with all the research we’ve looked at as to how languages evolved to be adaptive to their environments and they affect the way we think, how can it not be that text and many other new forms of digital textogolgy will not influence the way people reply on the language they have to think. So ultimately time will tell as future research is done to analyze this, but we are always heading into the unknown as language and modes of communication constantly evolve.
References
Dazed. (2019, May 28). The people who have no voice inside their head. https://www.dazeddigital.com/science-tech/article/44494/1/living-without-inner-speech-voice-inside-head-psychology-science
Fausey, C. M., Long, B. L., Inamori, A., & Boroditsky, L. (2010, September 12). Constructing agency: The role of language. Frontiers. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00162/full
YouTube. (2017, June 7). Lera Boroditsky, how the languages we speak shape the ways we think. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGuuHwbuQOg&t=2066s
Photo credit:
Oral communication. (n.d.). Wikimedia. Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Oral_communication.jpg.
