14:25
During this part of Dr. Borditsky’s speech, she mentioned how an aboriginal community in Australia would greet each other by asking which direction they’re going. In Western cultures, greetings are often questions about our well being such as “how are you?” or “how have you been?”. I was born and raised in China. Growing up, a common greeting we had was asking whether you’ve eaten. I found this part of Borditesky’s speech interesting as it shows how language and culture place different importance and emphasis when greeting other.
17:38
During this part of Dr. Borditsky’s speech, she talked about the many ways different cultures use directions to represent time. In North America, we are used to representing time from left to right on a horizontal linear line. However there are other cultures that represent time vertically and also based on cardinal directions. This was something new I learned from watching the speech and it made me think about how a concept can be greatly affected by culture and the intersectionality of language and experience.
18:31
During this part of Dr. Borditsky’s speech, she talked about when a person learns a new language and a new way to talk, it changes how they think. This was interesting as it relates to my experience learning English as my second language. Since I currently speak English the majority of time in my everyday life, when I do speak Mandarin, I sometimes use incorrect grammar that would be correct in English. This shows how learning a new language affects the way I now think.
33:55
During this part of Dr. Borditsky’s speech, she talked about how meaning of phrases can change if we change the grammar and how it affects the processing of information and what we pay attention to. I think this is loosely related to being a teacher. When I’m teaching I try to use different wording and emphasize more important content to help my students know what is more important and what they should spend more time learning.
36:17
During this part of Dr. Borditsky’s speech, she talked about how different cultures have different base systems for counting and how they represent numbers differently using their bodies. In North America we are taught to use our ten fingers to represent the first ten numbers. When I first came to Canada during grade school, I remember using a one hand counting method for representing the first ten numbers and my classmates and teachers were very confused. This shows that not only are languages different, but body language and how we interpret language using our bodies also have interesting distinctions across different cultures.
42:49
During this part of Dr. Borditsky’s speech, she talked about how words have different associations which attach different meanings. The example in the video was how changing the label from prunes to dried plums drove up sales significantly due to the prior “negative” association with the word prune to old age. This shows how language is ever changing especially when people of newer generations are using existing words to mean new things. Examples of this would be “fire” – to mean great or delicious, “bet” – to mean I promise, and “salty” – to mean upset or jealousy.