Here are my six observations from Dr. Lera Borditsky’s SAR lecture from May 2017.
[8:38] Dr. Boroditsky mentioned a quote from Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor, which is “To have a second language is to have a second soul”. As a multilingual learner, it resonates with my experiences. Learning a new language when I first came to Canada was not merely academical. It was an immersive experience that transformed my way of thinking, feeling, and perceiving the world. Each language carries its own cultural nuances, idiomatic expressions, and unique ways of structuring thoughts, which in turn shape how we interact with our environment and understand our experiences. I often feel like myself when I speak my native language, but feel like a completely different person when I switch to English.
[13:28] Dr. Boroditsky mentioned the speakers of different languages perceive and conceptualize time and space differently. I speak both Chinese and English, and yet I never noticed that when we address last week in Chinese, we say “up”, and next week as “down”. Additionally, I always find directions challenging, and I thought it was just certain groups of population that are “directionally challenged”. It was shocking for me to learn how the indigenous community in Australia do not gesture items based on themselves (left, right), but detailed and precise directions of the item (east, west). This resonates deeply with me as learning a new language often involves adapting to a different cultural or conceptual framework, which can broaden one’s perspective.
[20:06] Dr. Boroditsky mentioned how grammatical gender in languages, like Spanish or German, can influence how speakers think about objects. One point that surprised me is that the gender is not universal in these languages (ex: the sun always being masculine, or the moon always feminine). Different languages have different genders for different objects. This is important because learning a gendered language will require rethinking the inherent qualities assigned to objects, which can be a challenging yet enlightening experience.
[30:08] Dr. Boroditsky mentioned how language affects how we remember events and process information. For example, when witnessing the exact same event, English speakers and Spanish speaks can have different memories of the event. It was interesting to learn grammatical structures and vocabulary of a language can influence cognitive processes of the speaker, and how they understand responsibility and even blame. As a bilingual person, I can understand how switching between languages can alter how one perceives, recalls or describes past experiences.
[35:36] It was very interesting to hear her mention culture and language’s influence on number systems. The number words in a language can impact how easily we learn to count and perform arithmetic. Additionally, in my native language Mandarin, the number words are more regular and consistent, whereas in English, we understand numbers and perform calculations based on the base-10 system. As a multilingual learner, experiencing these differences firsthand can provide unique insights into how language shapes mathematical thinking. I have been in Canada for over 20 years, to this day, my head defaults to Mandarin when I think about numbers. I have to think of numbers in my head, count the zeros, and then say it in English correctly.
[44:36] Dr. Boroditsky concluded that even though languages and cultures make us very smart, it also limits our cognitive entropy. This is an important statement. As we’ve seen in the many areas she addressed earlier, different cultures and languages provide diverse ways fof interpreting and interacting with the world. This means that should we immerse ourselves in a specific culture or language, we often do not think outside of our experiences. It limits our thoughts, and create boundaries and challenges when we try to learn a new language or culture.
Lera Boroditsky’s views on how language shapes thoughts provide valuable insights into how the changing environment of text and technology might impact human language and cognition. As we’ve seen in Module 1, text is largely connected to oral language. Though we do not speak text, we often speak an interpretation of text. As Postman (2011) shared, language in itself is a form of technology – it facilitates communication and shapes human consciousness. Dr. Boroditsky’s research shows us that language is not static. It evolves with culture and people. As text and technology change, language will adapt to accommodate our changing cognitive processes. Though Postman (2011) raised concerns around diminishing cognitive skills caused by technology, it can also foster new ones, such as problem-solving. Dr. Boroditsky’s views on language and cognition suggest that the transition to a digital society may redefine literacy and require new cognitive skills. The adaptability of language to new technologies may lead to a broader understanding of communication.
References
Postman, N. (2011). Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology. Knopf Doubleday Publishing. (Original work published 1992)
SAR School for Advanced Research. (2017, June 7). Lera Boroditsky, how the languages we speak shape the way we think [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGuuHwbuQOg