[03:05] Dr. Boroditsky mentions how some languages require markers like gendered verbs depending on the subject, and she uses the sentence “Trump read Ta-Nahisi’s latest book” as an example. She inquires whether the surname refers to Donald or Melania Trump. I grew up learning English and Mandarin Chinese simultaneously, so this got me thinking about how individuals are described in both languages when proper nouns are not used. In English, when we describe an individual in either spoken or written language, we have the option of using the terms “him,” “her,” or the neutral “them.” In spoken Chinese, we say the neutral term 他 instead with the gender of the subject contextualized in the sentence rather than being explicitly mentioned. However in written Chinese, the character “他” has five versions as far as I know (all pronounced the same): 他 is used for “he/him,” 她 for “she/her,” 它 for “it” to describe non-living objects or animals, and 牠 for “it” to specifically refer to animals, and 祂 is used to describe God or a divine being. I find these distinctions between English and Chinese as well as spoken and written Chinese to be very thought-provoking as I had never realized how specific information like gender is presented differently in both languages.
[07:15] Here Dr. Boroditsky presents a list of Navajo verb stems which describe what and how food or drink is consumed, going into more specificity than the terms usually used in informal English conversations. After reading Dr. Boroditsky’s article and hearing her explanation of how languages have different values (e.g. one language having absolute directions in their vocabulary but not relative directions), it is interesting to think about how the process of choosing what details to impart in conversation has become so natural to us in our proficient languages because those “rules” and “values” are encoded in the brain.
[11:15] When presenting on the topic of time and how we organize it depending on the direction we learn to read and write, it made me think about the language of music and the varying ways in which time can be represented. I grew up learning Western music notation, which has notes on a staff going from left to right, and additional details like the tempo, the speed in which the piece is played. In my undergrad, I learned about composers in the 20th century who wanted to break free from those norms. This first led to atonality, the concept that a piece of music does not need to have a tonal center. Then music developed in a different direction where graphic scores, or graphic notation, were invented in the mid-1900s in which music broke entirely free of the staff or “horizontal axis” as Dr. Boroditsky describes it. Composers instead drew lines, shapes, and symbols starting anywhere going in any direction, leaving the performance details largely or entirely up to the musician’s interpretation such as tempo, dynamics (volume levels), or even specific pitches. There are even graphic scores in which music is played backwards or clockwise. As an additional connection, the art of conducting can show time as both “freeform” and “strict” where beats are clearly defined, but the time in between those beats can be shaped by the conductor to show different organizations of time within a piece of music.
[32:45] This section explores how the questions we ask and what we focus on when asking them can change the way people remember events. Dr. Boroditsky asks, “How do we know language can create this difference in what people remember?” She then describes the results of her experiment when priming speakers of different languages with agentive vs non-agentive questions. This reminds me of when I tried to teach my grade 5s a particular concept last September – because I only saw them twice a week for music, I needed to make sure that there was something for the students to latch on to for long-term retention. When I asked, “Do you remember what an accent is?” a lot of students would not remember the content from the previous class. But when I changed my question to, “Do you remember when [student name] demonstrated an accent?” then most of the students remembered because of that association with a person. Hearing about this method of priming in Dr. Boroditsky’s presentation will help me reflect on how to effectively frame my questions to students moving forward.
[41:50] Here Dr. Boroditsky mentions a study on how the connotation of “dried plums” is generally received better by the public instead of “prunes.” This made me think of how there are two ways to say “senior woman” in Chinese, but one of them has a more positive and respectful connotation while the other way is considered to be quite rude. This conversation about connotation also translates to my experience when I write in English, as I sometimes find myself thinking of synonyms for a word I am trying to express because I feel it has a more accurate connotation.
[44:40] In discussing linguistic diversity, Dr. Boroditsky says, “we just do things the way that we’re used to doing them in our languages and our cultures.” That is a perfect way to sum up my reaction in my first point on how I had never truly thought about how gender can be presented differently in English and Chinese.
[51:50] At this point in the Q&A, someone asked about the level of universality that languages share, and that made me wonder why music is often cited as the universal language (though I have also heard counterarguments to that point). Dr. Boroditsky first defines two basic requirements for universality: “All human languages must be learnable by humans” and “they all have to be useful in some way for communication…” Not only does that accurately apply to music, but I believe the definition for why the language is universal goes beyond language – it is a shared human experience, in which we can create, appreciate, listen to, and even play based on intuition (what sounds or feels right). Aspects of music are built into our bodies as conscious and unconscious functions, such as being able to feel the cadence of our heartbeat or our breathing or our autonomous circadian rhythm.
[56:50] One of the final questions asked is if texting changes the way we think. Dr. Boroditsky defines language as a “living thing” and I think that cannot be truer today with how the language of texting continues to evolve with abbreviations like “lol” and the existence of emojis. When texting, certain punctuation may denote different connotations depending on the age and relationship of the person we are messaging (e.g. a period used by someone who never uses it in texting may mark a serious change of tone, while someone in their mid-50s who uses periods quite often may be perceived as a normal part of that conversation). It is also interesting to see how language is preserved or changed through the medium of texting since it can be used in both informal and formal contexts, whereas email, a similar medium in which digital text is produced to communicate with another human being, is almost always used for formal dialogue.
Edit (Jan. 24): I was made aware that the five Chinese characters I mentioned in my first point may not be visible for everyone. I have inserted a screenshot at the end of this post showing them! Note that these characters are written in traditional Chinese, not simplified Chinese.
