How language shapes thought(scientificamerican.com)
scientificamerican.com
How language shapes thought
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-language-shapes-thought&print=true
17 comments
That's a strong claim. It's possible that bilingual people behave differently when using different languages as the article claims (I have my doubts), but even so they might not be aware of it on any level. At least I don't think my world view is affected in any way regardless of which language I'm using of the 4 I know.
Are the four languages you know from the same root language or from similar cultures?
Let's take Hindi and English.let's say I'm talking to "Fred" who is 15 years older than me.
In english I would say " Fred how are you doing?"
The Hindi version would be "uncle friend how are you? (using the respectful forms of the word "you"). And because I'm using the respectful form, I would genuinely feel more respectful of all my elders.
Let's take Hindi and English.let's say I'm talking to "Fred" who is 15 years older than me.
In english I would say " Fred how are you doing?"
The Hindi version would be "uncle friend how are you? (using the respectful forms of the word "you"). And because I'm using the respectful form, I would genuinely feel more respectful of all my elders.
>And because I'm using the respectful form, I would genuinely feel more respectful of all my elders.
Or oppressed by them. Or annoyed by the (often) increased length from using honorifics.
That's a horrific blanket statement I see associated all the time with language-affecting-thought, and it flies in the face of people's actual behavior, and completely ignores social pressures that I would think are massively more influential. Which will influence your thought more: that your language has honorifics, or that you'll be pounded and/or ostracized for not using them? Our survival and social instincts are rather powerful.
Or oppressed by them. Or annoyed by the (often) increased length from using honorifics.
That's a horrific blanket statement I see associated all the time with language-affecting-thought, and it flies in the face of people's actual behavior, and completely ignores social pressures that I would think are massively more influential. Which will influence your thought more: that your language has honorifics, or that you'll be pounded and/or ostracized for not using them? Our survival and social instincts are rather powerful.
No, my native Finnish is not related to the other three (which are all Germanic).
To take your example, as far as I know there's no difference in the respect I feel for people when using a language where the courtesy form of "you" is basically mandatory (German), archaic and basically never used (Finnish), or non-existent (English). Now, maybe there is some effect there that I can't notice that could be ferreted out with some psychological experiment. But the original claim that everyone knowing more than one language would implicitly be agreeing with the article is just not true.
To take your example, as far as I know there's no difference in the respect I feel for people when using a language where the courtesy form of "you" is basically mandatory (German), archaic and basically never used (Finnish), or non-existent (English). Now, maybe there is some effect there that I can't notice that could be ferreted out with some psychological experiment. But the original claim that everyone knowing more than one language would implicitly be agreeing with the article is just not true.
Technically, it's the familiar form of "you" that is non-existent in modern English. It was "thou".
I agree that it's not at all obvious from my experience that there would be such significant differences between languages.
I agree that it's not at all obvious from my experience that there would be such significant differences between languages.
Bilingual here (so this is anecdotal). When I'm immersed in the different lingual environments I notice fairly substantive differences in my identity. It's not stuff that's necessarily very apparent to bystanders (as far as I can tell).
The differences aren't necessarily as sweeping as 'world view'. I don't change political preferences by changing language.
The differences aren't necessarily as sweeping as 'world view'. I don't change political preferences by changing language.
Apologies. I didn't realise there was a paywall; I'm not sure why it works for me.
Can a mod edit the link?
Can a mod edit the link?
This article is effectively discussing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which in its strong form says that language constrains the thoughts you can have, and in it's weak form says that language merely influences your thoughts. Wikipedia's article on linguistic relativity probably explains it better.
The strong form is clearly false -- when was the last time you wanted to say something but struggled to find the right word that expressed just the nuance you meant? In the end, you may have settled for a more complicated explanation, simply because you didn't know of an English word that fitted. The lack of the word didn't stop you having the thought or feeling though.
On the other hand, the weak hypothesis is clearly true. Some of the article's examples show that you can't have simple expressions in some languages without being expressing gender, compass direction, seniority, etc. To express these things, you need to mentally aware of them, at least in the sense of having some background cognitive machinery that makes it available to you when forming utterances.
It will be very interesting to see how the evidence converges over time.
The strong form is clearly false -- when was the last time you wanted to say something but struggled to find the right word that expressed just the nuance you meant? In the end, you may have settled for a more complicated explanation, simply because you didn't know of an English word that fitted. The lack of the word didn't stop you having the thought or feeling though.
On the other hand, the weak hypothesis is clearly true. Some of the article's examples show that you can't have simple expressions in some languages without being expressing gender, compass direction, seniority, etc. To express these things, you need to mentally aware of them, at least in the sense of having some background cognitive machinery that makes it available to you when forming utterances.
It will be very interesting to see how the evidence converges over time.
This is why if I learn a second language, I would want it to be Ilaksh - it's an a priori philosophical/logical language. I wonder what kind of effect learning a language like that would have on my ability to reason.
That is a very superficial conclusion, and I'm eager to expand on it.
The environment was there first, not language. Sure, language is not as fast changing as the environment, so there is some delay which people apparently interpret as "language makes you think in non-obvious ways", but the reality is, that language is pretty much exactly as efficient as it can be and it is constantly adapting to be an optimal fit for the surroundings.
Example: When I say: "You are a police man", then one might say that I'm technically wrong. There is nothing about you that makes you intrinsically a "police" man. You might say that your job doesn't define you. But here is the thing: What you do, actually defines you very well in our society. It is very efficient to say: "you are a loser", instead of saying the 'fairer' version: "you are behaving like a loser" because in all likelihood, his behaviour will not change, and if it ever does, you can change if you ever see him again.
Example: When I say: "You are a police man", then one might say that I'm technically wrong. There is nothing about you that makes you intrinsically a "police" man. You might say that your job doesn't define you. But here is the thing: What you do, actually defines you very well in our society. It is very efficient to say: "you are a loser", instead of saying the 'fairer' version: "you are behaving like a loser" because in all likelihood, his behaviour will not change, and if it ever does, you can change if you ever see him again.
There is an interesting discussion (take down?) of a set of these experiments as referenced in Lera Boroditsky's previous WSJ piece at language log:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2592
Of course Liberman seems to be firmly against this new spate of Sapir-Whorf ideas. Personally I think the distinction between languages is less relevant than distinction between metaphors used, which of course may vary by language. This manifests itself in cases even with single language speakers: if readers are given two different metaphors for the same topic, they will behave differently (crime as a virus vs. crime as a beast being their example).
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...
Which the US government is interested in for terrorist understanding:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/05/why-ar...
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2592
Of course Liberman seems to be firmly against this new spate of Sapir-Whorf ideas. Personally I think the distinction between languages is less relevant than distinction between metaphors used, which of course may vary by language. This manifests itself in cases even with single language speakers: if readers are given two different metaphors for the same topic, they will behave differently (crime as a virus vs. crime as a beast being their example).
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...
Which the US government is interested in for terrorist understanding:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/05/why-ar...
I’ve often wondered if there is a parallel to the concept of Turing-completeness in linguistics. Once a language possesses certain principle structures, would it be capable of expressing all human thought?
I understand that linguistic relativity argues that a language’s structure directs the scope of thought, but couldn’t it be argued that these effects are largely cultural?
Two Turing-complete programming languages can naturally suggest quite different solutions when presented with the same problem, but they would both ultimately solve the problem—or in the linguistics parallel, both express the same thought.
Maybe we’re back to the adage that it’s easy to solve a problem, but much harder to find a novel one to solve.
So there could still be a defence of linguistic/programming relativity. That as certain programming languages invite particular problems to be solved, certain spoken languages invite particular thoughts to be expressed.
I understand that linguistic relativity argues that a language’s structure directs the scope of thought, but couldn’t it be argued that these effects are largely cultural?
Two Turing-complete programming languages can naturally suggest quite different solutions when presented with the same problem, but they would both ultimately solve the problem—or in the linguistics parallel, both express the same thought.
Maybe we’re back to the adage that it’s easy to solve a problem, but much harder to find a novel one to solve.
So there could still be a defence of linguistic/programming relativity. That as certain programming languages invite particular problems to be solved, certain spoken languages invite particular thoughts to be expressed.
I'm not a linguist, but here goes:
I'm not sure any language can express ALL human thought. I think as you try to fully specify a given thought, verbosity will increase without bound. Everything is connected in a brain.
I do think that there is a certain set of ideas that, once a language can express them, it's roughly equivalent to any other language that can express the same ideas.
I used to be really interested in figuring out how to specify this set, but I don't think it's too hard to achieve. It's not nearly as interesting a problem as how to express thoughts efficiently. We don't usually need to consider Turing-completeness when designing programming languages, either.
I'm not sure any language can express ALL human thought. I think as you try to fully specify a given thought, verbosity will increase without bound. Everything is connected in a brain.
I do think that there is a certain set of ideas that, once a language can express them, it's roughly equivalent to any other language that can express the same ideas.
I used to be really interested in figuring out how to specify this set, but I don't think it's too hard to achieve. It's not nearly as interesting a problem as how to express thoughts efficiently. We don't usually need to consider Turing-completeness when designing programming languages, either.
It's like programming. Sure you can do the same things in C++ and perl, but which would you rather implement a text parser in? Surely a prolog hacker will approach a problem differently than a javascript one?
Natural languages, I think are probably just as differentiated, even if it's harder for us to recognize it.
Natural languages, I think are probably just as differentiated, even if it's harder for us to recognize it.
To eradicate bad thoughts and erase memories is the reason I started learning Spanish: http://dreaminespanol.com/spanish-lifehacks/eradicate-bad-me...
Okay, that and a hot Spanish woman I was interested in. Both were good motivations to take on a new language.
Okay, that and a hot Spanish woman I was interested in. Both were good motivations to take on a new language.
Brought up in China and having been in the US for the last 11 years, I find it very true how languages shape thoughts and behaviors. When I speak English a different set of thoughts would come to me than when I speak Chinese. In fact even when I think in different languages I tend to see things in different ways.
I find exactly the same when I switch from German to English. I find that German is so extremely structured that it really forces you to think about what you're going to say. One thing I love about German too is the fact that complicated words are really just simple words stuck together. This reveals some amazing extra meanings sometimes.
A great example of this is the word for "vocabulary", "Wortschatz", which is made up of Wort = word, Schatz = treasure.
A treasure trove of words indeed!
Yes, the ability to form new words like that is very powerful. In the beginning the concatenated words tend to stay close to the original separate meanings of the word, but sometimes they start to stray.
(and for the record, the swedish variant of vocabulary is 'ordförråd', which literally mean a store of words)
(and for the record, the swedish variant of vocabulary is 'ordförråd', which literally mean a store of words)
The old word in english for vocabulary/glossary was 'wordhoard'. The influence of Latin displaced its usage though.
Another linguistic curiosity in English, is that, for some people, when there are two English words with equivalent meaning and one is originally English and the other originally Latin, some people will feel the Latin-derived word more weighty or of higher status than the English word.
For example: It's eminently clear she does not desire it. vs. It's utterly clear she does not want it. Or expression: Pardon me? vs. What?
Another linguistic curiosity in English, is that, for some people, when there are two English words with equivalent meaning and one is originally English and the other originally Latin, some people will feel the Latin-derived word more weighty or of higher status than the English word.
For example: It's eminently clear she does not desire it. vs. It's utterly clear she does not want it. Or expression: Pardon me? vs. What?
It's enlightening to notice, though I'm not sure it's much of a curiosity - IIRC the Latin comes from Norman French, and they ruled English speakers for a while, so everything Frenchy was marked as more refined.
If you enjoy this stuff, I would highly recommend reading "Le Ton Beu De Marot" by Hofstadter (of Gödel, Escher, Bach fame). It is a really interesting look at the issues of translating between languages. A lot of it is looking at the difficulty of separating form and content (which is especially obvious in poetry).
For example, if you were translating my paragraph up above, would you know that I wanted to write "If you are interested in this stuff", but I didn't because I used the word "interesting" in the next sentence? If you were translating into a language which had two words which roughly meant "interesting", then would it be more or less faithful to use those two words, rather than translating "enjoy"?
For example, if you were translating my paragraph up above, would you know that I wanted to write "If you are interested in this stuff", but I didn't because I used the word "interesting" in the next sentence? If you were translating into a language which had two words which roughly meant "interesting", then would it be more or less faithful to use those two words, rather than translating "enjoy"?
how do they separate culture from language? i am bilingual. i switch between english and spanish depending on the cultural context. sure, my behaviour changes - but why is that connected with the language, and not with the culture?
Most of her research doesn't discuss external social behaviours, but rather the core cognitive systems and responses to external phenomena. So, in a heavily controlled experimental lab session with just you looking at stimuli, your perceptual mechanisms may differ purely based on your primed language. That would control for culture (or some might argue - I'm not entirely sure culture isn't primed by language).
but that is making some big assumptions about how different parts of the brain are isolated from each other, isn't it? if my brain is one big neural net then firing up a bunch of neurons that are trained in one language could also activate neurons trained in the associated culture. there's still no way to know that it's the choice of language, rather than the culture context, that is important.
[edit:] traditionally you work around this kind of thing by finding subjects that differ only in one variable. identical twins, for example, might better show environmental differences, because they have common genomes. but while that works for nature/nurture i have no idea how you do something similar for culture/language.
[edit:] traditionally you work around this kind of thing by finding subjects that differ only in one variable. identical twins, for example, might better show environmental differences, because they have common genomes. but while that works for nature/nurture i have no idea how you do something similar for culture/language.
Am I the only one who finds the introduction extremely weak?
I am all for the study of how language might shape thought, but then again, he points to an example of a little girl living in an aboriginal community. In this case it has nothing to do with the person's language, all with environment in which they live.
I am all for the study of how language might shape thought, but then again, he points to an example of a little girl living in an aboriginal community. In this case it has nothing to do with the person's language, all with environment in which they live.
It's meant to bring about the same "what the ?!?!" and "how the ?!?!?" response you experienced. *She's pointing to something which we would all say "it's just culture!" and explains how it is (might be) language.
Lera Boroditsky (the author of the Scientific American article) on how language shapes thought on Fora.tv: http://fora.tv/2010/10/26/Lera_Boroditsky_How_Language_Shape... (1 hour 41 minutes).
A good article filled with concrete examples. Anyone interested in how language conditions thought should read it. (It's good enough to amortize the annoyance of the pdf, linked elsewhere in this thread.) It has long seemed like merely a matter of time before piles of evidence for Sapir-Whorf come to light. Language is too big a part of who we are for things to be otherwise.
To take an example close to home, for me the most important factor in software design is to develop language for talking about the problem, translate that language into code, then evolve it as one learns more about the problem. It's surprising how small changes in one's problem language (like renaming something) can trigger a cascade of valuable ideas.
To take an example close to home, for me the most important factor in software design is to develop language for talking about the problem, translate that language into code, then evolve it as one learns more about the problem. It's surprising how small changes in one's problem language (like renaming something) can trigger a cascade of valuable ideas.
This is really the basis for much of literary theory and modern criticism.
Ferdinand de Saussure used Structuralism to demonstrate relationships among the sign, the signifier and the signified. This is basically the necessary process of using the intangibilities of language to inadequately, but necessarily, represent the tangibilities of the real world.
It's pretty interesting stuff.
Ferdinand de Saussure used Structuralism to demonstrate relationships among the sign, the signifier and the signified. This is basically the necessary process of using the intangibilities of language to inadequately, but necessarily, represent the tangibilities of the real world.
It's pretty interesting stuff.
Language is a lossy codec for thought.
If it's daytime and we're outside, I can point north by pointing perpendicular from where the sun is heading. If it's nighttime and we're outside, I can point north by finding polaris.
Asking me to point north inside a building with my eyes closed is a different story.
Asking me to point north inside a building with my eyes closed is a different story.
Fan's of Iain M banks "Culture", novels already know this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture#Language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture#Language
http://psychology.stanford.edu/~lera/papers/sci-am-2011.pdf
I think anyone who knows more than one language implicitly realizes the conclusions of this paper but she has some fascinating examples.