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Does language shape what we think? | ||
Tags: Thinking | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Thantophobia Groupie United States Joined 5167 days ago 49 posts - 66 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 1 of 3 22 January 2011 at 8:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here's an
article about it. I've thought about that before, actually. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BartoG Diglot Senior Member United States confession Joined 5452 days ago 292 posts - 818 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Uzbek | Message 2 of 3 22 January 2011 at 11:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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There was an earlier thread about color distinctions that touched on this:
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=20899&PN=0&TPN=1 In that thread, I noted:
I didn't realize it when I wrote it, but a key point here is that we're talking about distinctions we are raised to make. It's not the language, but the context in which we learn it - i.e., the culture - that makes the difference. Can I count to one hundred with ease because my language has a word for it, not to mention for all the numbers between? Or can I count to one hundred with ease because I spent an hour a day for five or six years sitting in classes to learn the basic operations of numbers before moving on to algebra? I imagine if we gave the Piraha a number system and took their kids away from other activities an hour a day for several years, they'd get the knack for counting. But if you just gave them the words, the words would soon go away. Because the Piraha culture, as it stands, does not need to know a precise count of people, animals, vegetables or anything else. Giving the Piraha numbers would not cause the village elders to start taking censuses, the children to start demonstrating they can count to ten, etc. To get the Piraha using numbers would not require a change in the language, but a change in the whole culture. Language is mostly about capturing things that are already thought. It's a shorthand for describing the world as we are taught to perceive it. Does that affect individual speakers? Of course. But is this because of language qua language, or because of the socio-cultural context in which language operates? Let's rephrase the question: Does language permit us to quickly achieve mutual understanding within a common cultural framework by not wasting our mental energy thinking about or communicating things our culture doesn't focus on? Yes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hjordis Senior Member United States snapshotsoftheworld. Joined 5191 days ago 209 posts - 264 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 3 of 3 22 January 2011 at 11:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Aye, language doesn't shape the way we think; it's the culture we learn it in. In fact, I think it's the opposite. The way we think shapes our language. The things that our collective culture finds important are emphasized in our language. If there WERE a language that had 200 words for snow that wouldn't change the way they thought about snow. It would be because they thought about snow differently from the beginning.
And of course saying you can't think of a concept you don't have a word for is ridiculous. If that was true nobody would ever invent anything except by accident. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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