I was raised in a politically conservative and fundamentally evangelical Christian household and was staunchly committed to the epistemological and ontological tenets of those groups. Boy did that make my 20’s difficult! Over the last few years I have done a lot of formal and informal investigation into people with similar backgrounds, specifically about the cognitive limitations within these types of communities. All this to say, I have come a long way from my teen years and have started to really enjoy learning about language, symbols, and meaning making (semiotics). Language, specifically the limitation of language, held such power during my formative years that the notion that language can influence your world-view and perception of the word is truly fascinating. For me, it removes barriers of access to certain “thoughts”. Growing up, you had to think about god a certain way and perform certain rituals a certain way in order to be accepted. I look back with a smidgen of shame and embarrassment to think that I sincerely thought, with absolute certainty, that the modern, 21st Century English translation of multi-millenial old stories compiled over centuries in a variety of different languages would not, in fact, could not contain “errors” of translation, transmission, context, or cultural application. Face value was the only viable interpretation. It’s been nearly two decades since the fabric of this mindset started to unravel, and I have since enjoyed the journey of exploring, not what is inherently True, but context and conditions that make something true.
Dr. Borditsky’s SAR lecture was very enjoyable and given the context above, here is what caught my attention.
1. 11:15 – Time is the most used noun in the English Language. I find our culture’s fixation with time quite amusing and our neo-liberal/corporate capitalist economy ensures that everything comes down to time. So much so, that time is colloquially and literally, equal to money. To play with Dr. Borditsky’s idea of synonyms (Liberty Fries = French Fries… France = Land of Liberty), we could be making idiomatic statements like: “money is on my side”, “in the nick of money”, “only money will tell”, “too much money on my hands”, “living on borrowed money”, “money is of the essence”.
2. 16:59 “very egocentric of me to make the dimension of time chase me around every time I turn my body”. This quote is in context of the Thaayorre people who live in Pompuraaw, Australia who fix time from East to West. There were other examples of time travelling forward, backward, up, or down. This cultural difference made me think about how time has only recently been proven to be a variable rather than a constant (thanks Einstein!) and how frame of reference is a critical component when examining anything about our universe.
3. 25:39 – Gendered personification in visual art. I got my degree in Jazz Studies in 2014, and have been a performing artist since I was in elementary school. Over the last twenty five(ish) years of being in the performing arts world (which included courses in art history), I have never once thought about how gendered language would influence the personification of object in the visual arts.
4. 18:32 – Causality of language. teach people new metaphors for time and they think differently. This made me think about the “power of words”, specifically in the context of self-help or my cultural and spiritual context where prayer is a critical part of the day-to-day. I suppose this could, do a degree, support claims regarding the mental and cognitive shifts that happen when you speak or recite certain words and phrases. I would be interested to look into studies of gratitude journals or daily self-affirmations and see if they line up with Dr. Borditsky’s research. I would be curious if, for example, a gratitude journal does more than improve mood or self-perception but actually re-wires how the brain views the world.
5. 32:30 – Do you remember if it was an accident? This section reminded me of a car accident I witnessed. I was driving behind someone under the influence of drugs and they hit a parked car on the side of the road. There was no oncoming traffic and there was no one behind me. I was the first on the scene, called the police, and helped the drive get out of their car. When I was waiting to give my testimony to the police, I heard some folks telling another office that it was a “hit and run” and there was another car involved that drove away. I told the police office that their recollection was not true at all and he said, “ya that happens all the time.” It’s interesting to consider these accounts given our language actually kinda supports eye witness testimony of accidents.
6. 40:44 – What a thing is called. Patriots, activists, or terrorists? As noted in the video, this is a commonly used political gambit and can be used to push or pull certain ideas or ideologies towards certain actors. Given the political division in the West, it is critical to educate students about the ways that language can be used to one’s advantage to appear more or less connected to an event or idea. Coming in 7th place sounds a lot better than coming second last!
