Throughout history, language has been a significant part of how humans are able to communicate with each other. Communication is a vital part to the way humans live and even survive with each other. Languages are all unique, and they can possibly be a factor in the way humans solve problems or think in general. In the essay “How Does Our Language Shape the Way We Think?,” Lera Boroditsky delves into this complex topic. She specifically focuses on the topic of language and how people’s thinking can actually change depending on the language that they speak. To effectively prove her argument, she has conducted many experiments with her students and colleges that test the way that groups of people complete tasks differently based on their language. …show more content…
Throughout her essay, Boroditsky uses language that is not very complex but because she knows the audience that she is trying to appeal to, she occasionally uses more complex terms that her audience can understand. Boroditsky uses various rhetorical questions such as “Do the languages we speak shape the way we see the world, the way we think, and the way we live our lives?” (Boroditsky 3) to bring up important parts of her argument or to introduce a new argument. use of rhetorical questions is greatly beneficial towards proving her point because she directly answers questions that readers would probably ask in relation to her point. When Boroditsky gives background for her directional experiment, she explains the village life of the Kuuk Thaayorre: “Follow me to Pormpuraaw, a small Aboriginal community on the western edge of Cape York, in northern Australia” (Boroditsky 5). This is really important in writing because it first of all, makes the reader more interested, but it also created a better mental image for the reader so they can understand what is being said more easily. These, and many other, literary techniques are all very important aspects of the work as a whole, and all help Boroditsky prove her argument that language is related to
Language is our power and expression is our freedom. Through a puff of air, we are able to communicate and influence the environments that surround us. Over the course of time humans have evolved, but by the means of language, humans have matured into humanity. The possibility of thought and emotions such as empathy show the ability to think with complexity. A crucial element that helps Suzanne K. Langer’s illustrate the essence of humanity throughout her essay “Language and Thought.” Langer thoroughly depicts what sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom by explicitly stating “The line between man and beast […] is the language line” (120). Consequently, this implies that if a person is declined the freedom of language they are hardly considered human. Many people around the globe have had their voices silenced due to corrupt governments and the oppression of their culture. These individuals are subjected to the devastating effects of the loss of language, which in turn, translates to the loss of power. Language is our foundation for hopes and opportunity, for with out it a person is shell of possibility that is subjected to a passive existence.
Most people who grow up with a foreign language spoken in there house grow up with an advantage in society. This advantage can only occur once the individual learning that foreign language also learns the dominant language spoken in that country. Once both of these languages are learned and mastered, the individual has now placed them se...
Languages Impact Children’s Ability to Reason about Mental States?. The Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota, Apr. 2010. Web. 7 Sep. 2013. .
Sometimes we think that words are a way to express what we have on our minds. Right? Think again. Guy Deutscher justifies just that. Our mother tongue does train our brains into thinking a certain type of way, also altering our perceptions of reality. In the NY Times article, “Does Your Language Shape How You Think?,” Guy points out that the mother tongue is Hebrew and leaves us with how we perceive the world. Guy’s protestor, Benjamin Lee Whorf, exclaims that language doesn’t have a particular word for a concept and that the concept itself could not be understood by the speaker. Guy argues that he does not have enough evidence that will substantiate the theory. He claims that Whorf is wrong on so many
Jimmy Santiago Baca had spent five years in a maximum security prison when he decided to make a choice that many inmates do not have the opportunity to make; he decided to learn to read and write. This choice impacted his entire life and led to him not only becoming a reformed individual while in prison, but also an award winning poet, novelist, and memoirist. In his writing, Coming into Language, Jimmy Santiago Baca described himself before he started writing as feeling lost only to find himself through his writings. He wrote,
Understanding more than one language has positive effects on the brain’s ability to think. In comparison to multilingual individuals, monolingual English speakers are at a considerable disadvantage when it comes to learning, cultural awareness, and effectiveness in global affairs.
In her article, How Does Our Language Shape the Way We Think, Lera Boroditsky (2009) explains how the results of her experiments support the idea that the structure of language shapes the way we think. In one of her experiments, she found that English speakers would place cards showing temporal progression in temporal order from left to right, Hebrew speakers would place them right to left, and that the Kuuk Thaayorre would place them from east to west. This shows that the written language affects how time is represented to them. In another one of her experiments, she asked German and Spanish speakers to describe some items and found that the masculinity or femininity of the noun in their respective languages affects how it is ultimately described. This can also be seen in how artists represent the human form of abstract entities like death. Boroditsky concludes that “Language is central to our experience of being human, and the languages we speak profoundly shape the way we think, the way we see the world, the way we live our lives.” (Core reader p. 49) I would like to add that language is also the foundation of a person’s culture, pride, and self by exploring articles written by Eric Liu, Amy Tan, and Gloria Anzaldua.
Language has a significant impact on cognitive development as according to Vygotsky language precedes thinking. (Powell, Katherine C, Kalina, Cody J p241) A common language is necessary for people to interact socially. Language is...
Language does not fully influence thought; rather language provides us with a [air of tinted glasses, forever altering our perception. The three outcomes of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is linguistic determinism, linguistic relativism and that thought is not affected by language. Language is a tool for communication; its linguistic processes are common in most aspects of thought. It unconsciously influences our thought from basic cognition to major life decisions. The language that we speak influences the way we think, our perception of the world, and hence how we see ourselves in society.
Do you understand the difference that language can make, just in how things are named and described? Another example that was given was how Chinese children displayed far greater mathematical understanding compared to English speaking children, and the disparity was traced back to language.
Pinker, S. (1994). The language instinct: How the mind creates language. New York: W. Morrow.
We all know that speaking any language involves using our brains, but how does this effect the way we think? For example; people who are deaf may use sign language or read lips and communicate more with body language, other languages assign genders to inanimate objects, and in the U.S.A we use egocentric directions whereas some other countries use cardinal direction. In “Does Your Language Shape How You Think”, Gay Deutscher explains that the language we speak and the dialect we use can influence how humans perceive their surroundings and the world itself (447). According to Tom Munnecke in “Nothing Is Missing”, he describes how frustrating it can be, to be bilingual, because you can be thinking in one language, but have to translate your thoughts to another language (455). Lera Boroditsky in “Lost in Translation”, describes how language along with the culture influences our thoughts and how language can change the way a person thinks and reacts in everyday situations (469). Language is not just a use of communication, it has a huge impact on the way we think, act, and perceive the world we live in today.
Language is an essential thing needed to communicate and to develop the skills one needs to be a complete, whole, intelligent individual. Language is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. Here we shall define language and lexicon, evaluate the key features of language, describe the four levels of language structure and processing, and analyze the role of language processing in cognitive psychology.
In the last few decades, the notion of language and brain has been highlighted in different scientific fields such as: neurology, cognitive science, linguistics biology, technology and finally education.
“Language forces us to perceive the world as man presents it to us.” (Julia Penelope). Language is a mold Many will say that no matter what language one speaks everyone has the same brain anatomy thus language does not shape the way that we think and they way we perceive the world. While others believe there is no correlation with language and how it shapes human thoughts, there is evidence that proves otherwise; language does shape the way that we think. It is odd to think that no matter the language one speaks that everyone’s way of thinking is all identical. Lera Boroditsky article, “Lost in Translation” goes over her theory about language and how it shapes the way that we think. She shuts down a lot of critics who do not agree with her