Recently I watched this TED Talk by Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky where she explains some of the ways our lifestyles are affected by the languages we speak. She explains how the constructs of some languages such as the masculinity or femininity of nouns or the way colors are categorized differently across languages affects the way they think about every day situations. For example, those who speak a language that describe the sun as feminine are more likely to use feminine traits such as “beautiful” or “elegant” to describe the sun, while those who speak a language that describe the sun as masculine are more likely to use masculine traits to describe the sun.
Boroditsky does a great job of showing how language does influence the way we think and view the world more than we might have thought. It might seem obvious that language shouldn’t have an effect on the way people think, and that everyone views the objective world the same. However, the the examples Boroditsky gives provide great insight as to how the objective world as one views it can differ greatly from the world as another views it, due to the language they speak. For example, the way Russians categorize light and dark blue as two separate colors while English speakers see them all as just blue shows how the way we think is altered by our language.
I suspect that languages must also have some effect on the way people learn. As someone who has taught bilingual students and students who speak varying languages, I can tell that some face certain difficulties more often than others. All in all, the video further shows how interrelated the fields of linguistics, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience are.
Michael Chen 