Task 2 – Does Language Shape the Way we Think?

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  1. [4:30] Dr. Boroditsky gives the example of translating a sentence in English to other languages and mentions that depending on the language it is being translated to, there may be some hurdles. In her example there may be some difficulties in the sense that there might not be a word for “blue” or “left”. Growing up in my own experience learning Cantonese, there were certain phrases in both English and Cantonese that did not have a specific word in the other language. There could be synonyms, but not a direct translation that would effectively convey the full meaning of the word or phrase.

  2. [21:02] Dr. Boroditsky speaks about grammatical gender with many European languages, where nouns are assigned as masculine or feminine. I connected to this part because when I was learning French in high school, I found it difficult to differentiate nouns, whether they were masculine or feminine, and could not find any connection or pattern to them – I just had to memorize them. As Dr. Boroditsky mentions, there does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to this. As part of the curriculum, I teach French to my students, and they too find it difficult to wrap their heads around the fact that nouns are masculine and feminine, and think it is interesting how nouns are different from English.
  3. [25:42] Dr. Boroditsky provides examples of how people assign objects to be masculine or feminine depending on the language that they speak. She uses Michelangelo’s Times of Day, which are reflective of the grammatical gender that is used in Italian. Adding on to my previous point, in my attempt to remember the nouns better in French, I started to perceive certain nouns as more masculine or feminine in order to remember them more easily. Making these connections helped me remember the grammatical gender better, and I found myself making these connections in English as well, even though we don’t use grammatical gender in English.
  4. [39:46] Dr. Boroditsky talks about a group of Nicaraguans, who do not have number words, like other languages. This reminds me of teaching students place value. I always teach students this lesson at the beginning of the year, even in grade 6/7, and they think it is somewhat rudimentary. However, students need to put in more thought into transferring from word form to standard form (numerals) when we do numbers with more digits. They then see the connection when we move on to different units during the year and see how important place value is to explain their numerical thinking, which is sometimes like Dr. Boroditsky says it is taken for granted.
  5. [41:29] Dr. Boroditsky continues to explain how language affects our perception. She shares an example of a company that rebrands their item from prunes to dried plums to attract a younger target audience. The word “prune” is often associated with old age, and while it was costly to change the label, the product sold better due to the name change. This resonated with me because other than teaching, I have a small business, where I sell silicone bead lanyards. The beads that I use are actually meant for baby and teething projects, but since I market them towards teachers, and use what Etsy calls SEO (search engine optimization). I market my lanyards using keywords that are targeted towards teachers like “teacher gift”, “teacher style”, etc., and a large portion of my customer base are teachers.
  6. [43:42] Dr. Boroditsky discusses different ways to demonstrate how language can change thinking. She points out that bilinguals, when switching languages, can change the way people think, which I think is true. When I am speaking English on a daily basis, I think in English. However, when I am speaking Cantonese to my parents and grandpa, I think in Cantonese. My partner is Hungarian and moved to Canada when he was 13, so he only speaks to his parents exclusively in Hungarian because that is what he grew up speaking. He, too, agrees that he thinks in Hungarian when he speaks to his parents. There have been times when he finishes speaking to them in Hungarian, then to me, but forgets to switch languages. All in all, I can connect with Dr. Boroditsky’s statement and agree that it is true.