I recently read an interesting article in the Stanford alumni magazine (I'm not an alumni; my mom is
). The article, "You Say Up, I Say Yesterday," summarized the research of cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky regarding the philosophy behind human language. The article contained some fascinating quotes, which I've reprinted below {the link to the original article is here http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2010/mayjun/features/boroditsky.html}:<><><><><><><><><><><>
The article explains the opposite position first. "[Some scientists] believe that languages express thinking and perception in different ways, but do not shape thinking and perception. (Babies think before they learn to speak, so thought is not dependent on language.)"
However, it continues to say, "There is no debate that specific word choice and use of language can influence other people’s thinking…. Boroditsky counters that there is nothing in human endeavor to which language is not connected. Thus, she argues, why not the very mechanisms of how we perceive, remember, and process?”
This theory, that the structure of language is integral to both thought and cultural evolution, is an idea sometimes called linguistic relativity.
According to linguistic relativity, linguistic features [may] inform more fundamental differences in how cultures convey their relationship to concepts such as time, space, color, or gender. ‘What I’m really interested in are the ingredients of meaning. I don’t believe we can explain how we construct meaning without understanding patterns in metaphor and language," says Professor Boroditsky.
Here are some concrete exampes of the theory:
Indonesians’ language structures cues their attention. If you need to figure something out to put it into words, then you pay attention to those details; but if you don’t, you don’t.
English tends to assign an agent to an action regardless of the agent’s intent, also tends to more vividly imprint that agent in the speaker’s memory.
English speakers tend to see time on a horizontal plane: the best years are ahead; he put his past behind him. Speakers of Mandarin tend to see new events emerging like a spring of water, with the past above and the future below.
Finally, linguistic framing affected people’s judgments of blame and financial liability in all conditions; language mattered whether it was presented before, after, or without video evidence.
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Fascinating ideas, right? Go ahead and read the article, and then here are somequestions for discussion:
1. What do you think about linguistic relativity? Which perspective do you think may be correct?
2. Do you have any "psychological" language structures in your writings? If so, what are they like? How do you incorporate the cognitive science of language into your works {or how might you in the future}?
. But folks, this is fascinating stuff, really! So just to make life easier, here are easier questions you can discuss without ever having read that article. Though you should. It's amazing.