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How language shapes the way we think

Cómo el lenguaje determina nuestra forma de pensar

Lenguaje y pensamiento TED Talks

Entrevista en BBVA Aprendamos Juntos 2030

Does Language Shape Thought?

Mandarin and English Speakers’ Conceptions of Time

 

Lera BORODISTKY

Stanford University

 

Does the language you speak affect how you think about the world? 

This question is taken up in three experiments.

 

English and Mandarin talk about time differently: English predominantly talks about time as if it were horizontal, while Mandarin also commonly describes time as vertical. 

 

This difference between the two languages is reflected in the way their speakers think about time.

 

In one study, Mandarin speakers tended to think about time vertically even when they were thinking for English (Mandarin speakers were faster to confirm that March comes earlier than April if they had just seen a vertical array of objects than if they had just seen a horizontal array, and the reverse was true for English speakers).

 

Another study showed that the extent to which Mandarin–English bilinguals think about time vertically is related to how old they were when they first began to learn English.

 

In another experiment native English speakers were taught to talk about time using vertical spatial terms in a way similar to Mandarin. On a subsequent test, this group of English speakers showed the same bias to think about time vertically as was observed with Mandarin speakers.

 

It is concluded that (1) language is a powerful tool in shaping thought about abstract domains and (2) one’s native language plays an important role in shaping habitual thought (e.g., how one tends to think about time) but does not entirely determine one’s thinking in the strong Whorfian sense.

Does the language you speak shape the way you understand the world?

 

Linguists, philosophers, anthropologists, and psychologists have long been interested in this question. 

This interest has been fueled in large part by the observation that different languages talk about the world differently.

 

Does the fact that languages differ mean that people who speak different languages think about the world differently? 

 

Does learning new languages change the way one thinks? 

Do polyglots think differently when speaking different languages?

 

Although such questions have long been issues of interest and controversy, definitive answers are scarce. This article briefly reviews the empirical history of these questions and describes three new experiments that demonstrate the role of language in shaping habitual thought.

 

For example, Slobin (1987, 1996) has suggested that language may influence thought during ‘‘thinking for speaking.’’ Languages force us to attend to certain aspects of our experience by making them grammatically obligatory. Therefore, speakers of different languages may be biased to attend to and encode different aspects of their experience while speaking.

 

First, speakers of different languages are usually tested only in their native language. Any differences in these comparisons can only show the effect of a language on thinking for that particular language.

 

Second, comparing studies conducted in different languages poses a deeper problem: There is simply no way to be certain that the stimuli and instructions are truly the same in both languages.

 

There is no sure way to guard against this possibility when tasks are translated into different languages.

 

A third limitation is that even when nonlinguistic tasks (such as sorting into categories or making similarity judgments) are used, the tasks themselves are quite explicit. Sorting and similarity judgment tasks require participants to decide on a strategy for completing the task. How should I divide these things into two categories?

 

These results suggest that experience with a language can shape the way one thinks

 

DOS VIDEOS... UNO: Keith CHEN

Keith CHEN

Could your language affect your ability to save money?

¿Puede su idioma afectar a su capacidad de ahorro?

https://www.ted.com/talks/keith_chen_could_your_language_affect_your_ability_to_save_money?subtitle=es

Juli GARBULSKY

Zombies en la escuela

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6zBmBUOMhY