Task 2: Does language shape the way we think?

11:44 Dr. Boroditsky mentions if you read and write in a language that goes from right to left, then you’ll also organize time from right to left

This is an interesting thought for me because I am a multilingual speaker which includes languages that read from both right to left and left to right. So when I am thinking in English, I think of timelines as right to left, but when I think in Urdu or Arabic, my timeline switches from left to right. 

13:25 Dr. Boroditsky mentions in mandarin the past is up and the future is down

The concept that time does not solely exist on a horizontal axis in all languages is very unique and eye-opening to me. I always thought this has nothing to do with language and just how people think but actually many languages differ in how they think of the past and future. It’s also almost disorienting for me to think that the future is backwards and the past is forwards when gesturing.

18:39 Dr. Boroditsky mentions language has causal power so you can change how people think by changing how they talk

Five minutes after I heard the previous concept and was still wondering how it’s possible, Dr. Boroditsky addressed my question by talking about how we know language is what’s causing people to think about time in different ways. So I realized it is not just language but also other aspects of culture that may be playing a part in this.

25:03 Dr. Boroditsky mentions that hurricanes are given female names because people underestimate their strength and do not evacuate

This was such an interesting fact that Dr. Boroditsky highlighted and even though it made me a little angry, I got to thinking if I do the same. And it’s true. In Urdu, everything has a gender and so whenever I have to describe something that has a female grammatical gender, I use feminine adjectives and vice versa. 

35:32 Dr. Boroditsky mentions that if you want eight potatoes, you say I want elbow potatoes

This was also very interesting to hear. You never stop and think that numbers may not exist in some languages or there may be a different way of describing them. It is obvious that other languages have different alphabetical scripts or letters but you almost never think about numbers. 

42:00 Dr. Boroditsky mentions that if you renamed prunes to plums, then young people would be more excited to buy them

This point really hit deep as it made me realize how deep-rooted some of our stereotypes are, relating to some words. And how products are marketed to make us want to buy them. A similar example would be ‘organic’. Ever since having a baby, I’ve been looking for more ‘organic’ options to buy but even those sometimes have a million things in their ingredients that I do not understand. This makes me think that sometimes just writing organic on the product packaging may push you to buy it when really it may have many preservatives and additives in it. 

References: