{"id":23,"date":"2025-01-21T20:20:56","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T03:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zhu540\/?p=23"},"modified":"2025-01-21T20:33:41","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T03:33:41","slug":"task-2-does-language-shape-the-way-we-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zhu540\/2025\/01\/21\/task-2-does-language-shape-the-way-we-think\/","title":{"rendered":"Task 2 – Does language shape the way we think?"},"content":{"rendered":"

[2:30] <\/span><\/b>“Language shapes the way we think, the way we see the world, and even the way we experience time and space.”<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is important to me as I think about this often with my relationship with my parents and family. I immigrated to Canada from China when I was six years old. I learned English in school very quickly and before I understood the importance, my communication with my parents was limited. Often when I am speaking to my family in Chinese, it is both the words I struggle with as well as trying to pass on the emotion of what I am feeling. Often now I find I cannot convey the same emotional response to something in Chinese, as if my affect in that language is stunted. When I think in Chinese, I tend to think and speak about very simple ideas \u2013 cooking, food, chores \u2013 the topics that revolved my life at home. Trying to extend beyond those topics feels forced.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

[15:25] “Some languages, like Russian, have multiple words for different shades of blue, and speakers of these languages are better at distinguishing between those shades.”<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This example makes me reflect on how language shapes the details we perceive and focus on. That the language we use shapes our experience of our realities. Chinese is a very low-context culture \u2013 favoring implicit communication like tone and shared understandings. Often when I am speaking in Chinese, I find myself more keenly aware of my partner\u2019s body language and the exact phrasing of the message.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

[10:15] “Languages differ in how they describe spatial relationships\u2014some use absolute directions (north, south), while others use relative terms (left, right).”<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For me, this is so evident in my conversations with my family. Ever since I was young, I could not remember the Chinese names for North, South, East and West. In Chinese, places\/ people are often referred to by their cardinal directions. \u201cThe person is from the south\u201d, \u201cThat North-East Chinese person from work\u201d, anytime my family would speak about these, I would get lost in the conversation, having to clarify again and again. For myself, I speak about places in terms of right and left \u2013 not using cardinal directions at all.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

[13:40] “The languages we speak shape the way we think about blame and responsibility.”<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this quote, Boroditsky is speaking about how blame is shown in a language. This is evident in Chinese \u2013 we say \u201cthe bottle was broken\u201d instead of \u201cyou broke the bottle\u201d. Such a small and subtle shift represents a larger cue about how speaking that language can influence your views on responsibility.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

[17:20] “Being multilingual can give people cognitive advantages, such as improved executive control and mental flexibility.”<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There have been studies and data that show the Chinese language\u2019s single syllable number system can lead to improved math outcomes for Chinese speakers. Unlike English where numbers are multisyllabic even starting from 1-10, Chinese numbers follow a single syllable, modular structure \u2013 making mental math faster.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

[20:55] “The way we talk about time\u2014whether it\u2019s horizontal (left to right) or vertical (up and down)\u2014shapes how we think about time.”<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I think about how language can shape perspectives of time \u2013 I think about the horizontal timeline we use often in schools. Although for myself, this timeline makes sense, I can imagine how confusing it might be for other students from a different cultural background. How can we balance validating students\u2019 home cultures within curriculums but also teach classes of 30+ students in sustainable ways? <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Boroditsky, L. (2017, June). <\/span>How language shapes the way we think<\/span><\/i> [Video]. TED Conferences. <\/span>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=iGuuHwbuQOg<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\n[2:30] “Language shapes the way we think, the way we see the world, and even the way we experience time and space.”\u00a0 This is important to me as I think about this…\n<\/div>\n
Continue reading…<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":103899,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tasks","entry","entry-type-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zhu540\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zhu540\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zhu540\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zhu540\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103899"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zhu540\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zhu540\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zhu540\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/38"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zhu540\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zhu540\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/zhu540\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}