In her TED Talk, Lera Boroditsky explores how language shapes thought, perception, and cultural understanding, highlighting the intricate ways that words influence cognition and experience. As an educator, I find her ideas particularly relevant because they reveal how the language and structures we introduce in the classroom shape how students conceptualize the world. This reflection highlights several points from the lecture that line up with my teaching practice, and connects them to Jay David Bolter’s Writing Space, which examines how media and writing systems similarly structure thought and expand the ways humans interact with knowledge.

[8:17] “To what extent does a language and culture guide what we see in the world?”
As an educator, this question highlights how language shapes not just communication but the way students interpret their surroundings. I notice in my classroom that the vocabulary and structures we introduce often influence how learners frame and discuss experiences. This aligns with Bolter’s idea that the medium of expression, whether language or digital tools, reshapes cognition and perception, reminding me to provide multiple perspectives to broaden student understanding.

[20:03] “Language creates categories sometimes out of thin air.”
This strikes me because it shows that words are not just labels, they actively organize our thoughts. When teaching new terminology, especially in my Media Arts class, I see how it can open fresh ways of conceptualizing ideas, whether in simple terminologies or in more complex ways of thinking. Keeping this in mind, it’s also important to consider how the tools we use to communicate influence how learners organize and interact with information.

[21:13] “Once you’ve learned a language like this with grammatical gender, do you actually end up thinking of the Sun and the Moon as somehow more male or more female?”
I experienced this type of question when teaching grade 7 French and it illustrates the subtle ways language shapes perception, even for abstract concepts. While teaching, the way ideas are framed, through words and labels, we can significantly affect how students form mental models and associations.

[26:10] “Even simple events are complicated.”
Describing ordinary events is never neutral; the language we use frames how students understand what happens. Students’ interpretations often depend on the phrasing and emphasis we provide, underscoring the importance of more precise language while teaching. To suggest that the format or medium we use has a small influence on understanding would be ridiculous, instead we need to consider ways to embed complexity in presentation rather than just content.

[39:36] “You know that there’s something that you’re missing and you just have no idea how to get entry into that system.”
This idea mirrors the challenges students face when approaching new concepts: they can sense that knowledge exists, but may not yet have the language, strategies, or background to access it fully. In the classroom, careful scaffolding, through clear explanations, guiding questions, and structured activities, helps students navigate these gaps. Providing multiple entry points, examples, and opportunities to practice allows learners to build confidence and gradually take ownership of complex systems of knowledge.

[41:31] “What you call something is important, right, because we argue about it all the time.”
This highlights for me how terminology shapes understanding, discussion, and reasoning in the classroom. Words carry more than literal meaning, they guide how students conceptualize ideas and negotiate interpretations.

[43:54] “We inherit so much knowledge that’s been built over thousands of generations.”
Students are trying to enter into a body of knowledge, shaped by culture, history, and language. Teaching involves connecting new concepts to these existing frameworks, helping learners extend and reinterpret them. Bolter’s work reinforces this, showing that media and writing systems serve as vehicles for transmitting knowledge across generations, shaping how it is accessed and expanded.

Taken together, these reflections illustrate how language and the structures we use to communicate profoundly shape perception, understanding, and learning. They show that the ways we introduce concepts, frame discussions, and provide tools for thinking can either expand or limit students’ cognitive frameworks, setting the stage for the broader connections between language, media, and education.

Boroditsky’s insights demonstrate that language is not a neutral tool, as we often assume, but a framework that actively shapes perception, memory, and reasoning. Similarly, Bolter examines language and other mediums of communication, such as print, hypertext, and digital platforms, and how they structure cognition and influence the organization and accessibility of knowledge. Together, these perspectives highlight the responsibility and opportunity educators have to provide diverse linguistic and media experiences. By exposing students to multiple ways of seeing and thinking, we help them develop flexible cognitive frameworks capable of navigating both cultural and technological landscapes.

 

References:

Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Boroditsky, L. (2017, June 7). How language shapes the way we think [Video]. TED. https://youtu.be/iGuuHwbuQOg