Ted Talk - Lera Boroditsky | Appunti di Lingua Inglese

Ted Talk: “How language shapes the way we think” by Lera Boroditsky

There are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world -- and they all have different

sounds, vocabularies and structures. But do they shape the way we think? Cognitive

scientist Lera Boroditsky shares examples of language -- from an Aboriginal community in

Australia that uses cardinal directions instead of left and right to the multiple words for blue

in Russian -- that suggest the answer is a resounding yes. "The beauty of linguistic

diversity is that it reveals to us just how ingenious and how flexible the human mind is,"

Boroditsky says. "Human minds have invented not one cognitive universe, but 7,000."

She starts her intervention saying that she speaks using language, one of the

magical abilities that humans have → transmit really complicated thoughts to one

another. IN WHAT WAY? She’s making sounds with my mouth as she is

exhaling; and she is creating air vibrations in the air. Those air vibrations are

traveling to you, they're hitting your eardrums, and then your brain takes those

vibrations from your eardrums and transforms them into thoughts.

So because of this ability (language), humans are able to transmit our ideas across

vast reaches of space and time and knowledge across minds.

There isn't just one language in the world, there are about 7,000 languages spoken

around the world. And all the languages differ from one another in all kinds of

ways. Some languages have different sounds, they have different

vocabularies, and they also have different structures → That begs the

question: Does the language we speak shape the way we think?

Now, this is an ancient question and people have been speculating about this:

- Charlemagne, Holy Roman emperor, said, "To have a second language

is to have a second soul" -- strong statement that language creates

reality.

- Shakespeare has Juliet say, "What's in a name? A rose by any other name

would smell as sweet." that suggests that maybe language doesn't craft

reality.

She tried to answer to this question with searches that she had made in her lab

and she in fact she presents some examples for explain her theory:

Example 1: Aboriginal community in Australia, the Kuuk Thaayorre people →They

live in Pormpuraaw at the very west edge of Cape York. They don't use words like

"left" and "right," everything is in cardinal directions: north, south, east and west

[ex: "Move your cup to the north-northeast a little bit”]. Also the way in which Kuuk

Thaayorre is ‘hello’ is "Which way are you going?" And the answer should

be, "North-northeast in the far distance. How about you?".

People who speak languages like this stay oriented really well, better than we used

to think humans could → if your language and your culture trains you to do

it, actually, you do it very well.

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Ted Talk: “How language shapes the way we think” by Lera Boroditsky

There are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world -- and they all have different sounds, vocabularies and structures. But do they shape the way we think? Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky shares examples of language -- from an Aboriginal community in Australia that uses cardinal directions instead of left and right to the multiple words for blue in Russian -- that suggest the answer is a resounding yes. "The beauty of linguistic diversity is that it reveals to us just how ingenious and how flexible the human mind is," Boroditsky says. "Human minds have invented not one cognitive universe, but 7,000." She starts her intervention saying that she speaks using language, one of the magical abilities that humans have → transmit really complicated thoughts to one another. IN WHAT WAY? She’s making sounds with my mouth as she is exhaling; and she is creating air vibrations in the air. Those air vibrations are traveling to you, they're hitting your eardrums, and then your brain takes those vibrations from your eardrums and transforms them into thoughts. So because of this ability (language ), humans are able to transmit our ideas across vast reaches of space and time and knowledge across minds. There isn't just one language in the world, there are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world. And all the languages differ from one another in all kinds of ways. Some languages have different sounds, they have different vocabularies, and they also have different structures → That begs the question : Does the language we speak shape the way we think? Now, this is an ancient question and people have been speculating about this:

Charlemagne, Holy Roman emperor, said, "To have a second language is to have a second soul" -- strong statement that language creates reality.
Shakespeare has Juliet say, "What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." that suggests that maybe language doesn't craft reality. She tried to answer to this question with searches that she had made in her lab and she in fact she presents some examples for explain her theory: Example 1: Aboriginal community in Australia, the Kuuk Thaayorre people →They live in Pormpuraaw at the very west edge of Cape York. They don't use words like "left" and "right," everything is in cardinal directions : north, south, east and west [ex: "Move your cup to the north-northeast a little bit”]. Also the way in which Kuuk Thaayorre is ‘hello’ is "Which way are you going?" And the answer should be, "North-northeast in the far distance. How about you?". People who speak languages like this stay oriented really well, better than we used to think humans could → if your language and your culture trains you to do it, actually, you do it very well.

There are also really big differences in how people think about time → the Kuuk Thaayorre don't use words like "left" and "right." For them, time doesn't actually get locked on the body at all, it gets locked on the landscape , and this is completely different from the way in which Western people consider time, that is an egocentric view because the direction of time chase the person around every time he turn the body. EXAMPLE OF NUMBER : If she asks to the people how many penguins are in photo, they will count them, naming each one with a number, and the last number is the number of penguins → This is a little linguistic trick that you're taught to use as kids. You learn the number list and you learn how to apply it. Some languages don't do this because some languages don't have exact number words. They're languages that don't have a word like "seven" or a word like "eight." In fact, people who speak these languages don't count, and they have trouble keeping track of exact quantities. EXAMPLE OF COLOUR : Languages also differ in how they divide up the colour spectrum -- the visual world. Some languages have lots of words for colours, some have only a couple words, "light" and "dark." And languages differ in where they put boundaries between colours. → for example, in English, there's a word blue that covers a lot of shades, but in Russian, there isn't a single word. Instead, Russian speakers have to differentiate between light blue, "goluboy," and dark blue, "siniy”. In fact, testing people's ability to perceptually discriminate these colours, Russian speakers are faster to be able to tell the difference between a light and dark blue. And when you look at people's brains as they're looking at colours shifting slowly from light to dark blue, the brains of people who use different words for light and dark blue give a reaction as the colors shift from light to dark, whereas the brains of English speakers, for example, that don't make this categorical distinction, don't give that surprise, because nothing is categorically changing. EXAMPLE OF GENDER : Lots of languages have grammatical gender; every noun gets assigned a gender, often masculine or feminine. And these genders differ across languages. So, for example, the sun is feminine in German but masculine in Spanish, and the moon, the reverse. This actually have some consequence for how people think: So if you ask German and Spanish speakers to describe a bridge, "bridge" happens to be grammatically feminine in German, grammatically masculine in Spanish → German speakers are more likely to say bridges are "beautiful," "elegant" and stereotypically feminine words. Whereas Spanish

week, and by some estimates, half of the world's languages will be gone in the next hundred years. And the even worse news is that right now, almost everything we know about the human mind and human brain is based on studies of usually American English-speaking undergraduates at universities. So what we know about the human mind is incredibly narrow and biased, and our science has to do better.

The final thought that she leave is that: I've told you about how speakers of different languages think differently, but of course, that's not about how people elsewhere think. It's about how you think. It's how the language that you speak shapes the way that you think. And that gives you the opportunity to ask, "Why do I think the way that I do?" "How could I think differently?" And also, "What thoughts do I wish to create?".

Ted Talk - Lera Boroditsky, Appunti di Lingua Inglese

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Ted Talk: “How language shapes the way we think” by Lera Boroditsky