For this assignment, I reflected on Boroditsky’s (2017) talk, the power of language in our society, and how I use language in my part-time role as a high school volleyball coach. As a monolingual speaker, I don’t have multiple languages to draw examples from, so I turned to my coaching experience – which is a context with its own distinct language, cues, and jargon.
1. Communication Can Leave Knowledge Unspoken
[6:58] “for example if I tell you it rained this morning which I think is true you don't think oh boy but she didn't mention that it only rained outside not inside this room so she must not know that”
I love the subtle humour in this quote on how sometimes what we say doesn’t always match exactly the reality of what we’re describing. I think this can leave two people who experience the same conversation, come away with two vastly different interpretations of what was discussed. When we speak, we sometimes only say a small fraction of the information and most of the time it works because our listener fills in the gaps with shared understanding. When we say, “It rained this morning,” we assume that others will know the obvious details (that rain happens outside) without needing to explicitly state it. Meaning is found in what is said, but also what is left unsaid. Language relies on shared perspectives, shaped by cultural norms.
In a coaching context, I often find myself saying, “Watch the hitter,” which carries a whole lot of context – watch their angle of approach, watch their shoulder, watch their jump timing, watch where the ball is going, and so on. I don’t have to say all of that detail outloud, rather I use a short cue to encompass all of that information. I speak only a short phrase, and the players fill in the rest of the information we would have discussed at practices when we have more time to analyze the hitter.
2. The Power Of Language
[00:29] “I'll be talking to you about language and I'll be doing it using language of course because I can um this is one of these magical abilities that we humans have we can plant ideas in each other's minds using a finite set of words that we recombine into an infinite set of new meanings”
Language is powerful. It gives us a powerful toolkit from which we can create, recreate, shape and reshape thoughts and ideas. Things one person says can influence what others say or think, Language has negotiated meanings and only a finite set of words. We can share sounds by speaking words that convey meaning, emotions, and concepts. We can recombine those sounds and words and make different forms of writing, such as social media posts, texts, sentences, stories, poems, metaphors, idioms, and more.
An example from coaching is using positive vs negative language to shape my players’ thoughts. When a player is going to serve, I could say, “Don’t miss this one!” but that focuses their attention on the word “miss” and adds pressure. Instead, I could say, “Aim deep and focus on your toss,” these words help shape their thoughts on confidence, skill, and control. Both sentences are short but create entirely different mental images. Positive language helps athletes focus on success and perform with intention.
3. How Language Shapes Our Thoughts
[18:26] “When you teach people to talk a new way, you're teaching them to think a new way as well, and so that tells us that language has this causal power - you can change how people think by changing how they talk.”
Boroditsky (2017) discusses how language shapes our thoughts, and when we learn to speak in a new way, our default patterns of thinking begin to shift as well. This change is gradual, rather than immediate, but overtime a clear cause-and-effect relationship emerges. For example, when English speakers are taught Mandarin-style metaphors for time (such as past = up, future = down), they begin to think about time spatially in new ways. Language can also reshape how we understand spatial relationships (using north/south/east/west instead of left/right) or even how we perceive colour – the labels we use influence how we distinguish shades. Speaking in new ways allows us to organize ideas differently in our mind. Research demonstrates causation: when language is manipulated, patterns of thought change in predictable and measurable ways, effectively requiring how we perceive and make sense of the world.
An example I use when I’m coaching is reframing failures. For example, when an athlete makes a mistake, I encourage them to reframe their negative thoughts such as, “I failed”, into, “I learned something”. My hope is that it rewires their brain and reframes their thoughts into a growth mindset.
4. Language as a Cognitive Tool
[44:02] “Our systems of metaphors for space and time, our number systems, our ways of attending to and parceling out events all of these are cognitive tools that have been built by our predecessors over many many generations these are useful guide books to the world, ways of compressing the infinite amount of information you would otherwise need to figure out how to address, so these are incredibly useful tools”
In this part of the video, Boroditsky (2017) continues to discuss that language shapes our thinking. Language is a powerful tool because it provides us with frameworks for understanding the world around us. Language helps us organize complex information into manageable pieces, using metaphors and number systems.
With coaching, I use a lot of shortcuts, using language as a cognitive tool. For example, using the words “reset” after an intense play, or “next point focus” to get athletes to focus on the next play and not dwell on the previous point lost. My hope is that it helps athletes think clearer on the court during competition.
5. Language Guides Attention
[8:12] “Speakers of different languages witness exactly the same event but come away remembering different things about that event”
This quote highlights how language guides our attention, and shapes what we notice and what we remember about the conversation or information exchange. When two people experience the same event, their understanding of language shapes what details stand out. English speakers usually say, “He broke the vase,” which focuses on WHO caused the outcome. In Spanish, however, “The vase broke,” shifts the focus from the person to the event that happened. Language describes the experiences, and also filters them, shaping memory and interpretation in subtle ways.
In a coaching context, my players can walk away from the same instruction remembering two completely different things about the same event. It’s my job to check for understanding and ensure I’m clarifying to make sure my message is clear. They can also walk away from the same play that they were involved with and remember it differently than it actually happened. We use a lot of video game tape to be able to pause, slow down, or review plays through different contexts.
6. Prunes vs Dried Plums
[41:46] “the word prune lives in a bad linguistic neighbourhood right so imagine what are prunes associated with of course old age, constipation, you know wrinkly things that young Californians don't want to think about when they're buying their snacks. But dried plums well dried plums live in a great linguistic neighbourhood. They're friends with what like dried kiwis dried apricots, things you take with you on a hike right and so they bet that if you renamed prunes into dried plums, which is of course is what they are, people would be more excited to buy them and in fact they were right uh dried plums started selling better than prunes eventually they actually had to sell prunes and dried plums side by side”
Boroditsky (2017) is using dried plums and prunes as an example of how people thought about a common food item – when using “prunes”, it has a negative connotation with being old, constipation, etc, but when relabeled as “dried plums”, it has a positive connotation with being healthier, fresher, etc. Simply changing the name changed how people thought about the same item, leading to increased sales. Language has the power to reshape attitudes, even as something as simple as dried fruit. This is a good example of how slight changes used by marketing companies can lead to increased sales. This is a current trend that you currently see in grocery stores with products being labeled as “high protein”.
An example of this with coaching volleyball would be using language such as “starting players” and “bench players”; we try and reframe the language we use for the “bench players” to be “impact players” – players we can call on when the enter the game and change up the momentum on the court.
AI Disclaimer: I used ChatGPT for generating ideas on how language shapes our thoughts, helped me with metaphors and examples used in a coaching context, and used it to revise my writing for grammar and clarity. All final edits and ideas are my own.
Featured image from Unsplash.com
References
OpenAI. (2025). ChatGPT (GPT-5) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat
SAR School for Advanced Research. (2017, June 7). Lera Boroditsky, How the Languages We Speak Shape the Ways We Think [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGuuHwbuQOg