Blog Paper 4

     The text is written by a Stanford University online magazine on Lera Boroditsky and her research on languages ability to shape how we think. She believes that language has the ability to shape how we think and answer one of psychology’s ‘most intriguing and fractious questions’. 

Languages are different between every culture. As Boroditsky mentions with her use of the example of accidentally breaking a cup, in other languages, intent matters. For example, she explains that in Japanese or Spanish there is ‘verb form to indicate’, meaning that there is a specific word to explain breaking the cup. The responses are also different depending on whether it was an accident or not. As Boroditsky continues, in Japanese or Spanish the speaker would say ‘the cup broke itself’ if the intent was accidental. Written by Edward Sapir and Lee Whorf, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis supports this as it supports the view that the words and grammar of a language directly shape the thoughts of its speakers. This relates to the text on Boroditsky’s research as she supports the idea that language shapes the way a person forms a view of the world. Boroditsky was interested in seeing how cultures ‘convey their relationship to concepts such as space, time or gender’ and how linguistic features are used.

Universalism could also be seen supported by the text. Universalism suggests that language is a reflection of human thoughts and that all languages are similar with shared patterns and concepts. For example, from the text Boroditsky states, ‘I don’t believe we can explain how we construct meaning without understanding patterns in metaphor and language.’ This backs up the idea that all languages are connected with some pattern from one another. As universalism mentions, all nouns have verbs and if spoken, all vowels have constants 

A person’s individual speech pattern is known as their idiolect. The form of language one speaks, similar to your geographical location, is sociolect. The text refers to time to provide an example as to how some things are very different between languages and cultures, which is also a person's sociolect. For example, the text mentions Some languages require their speakers to include temporal information in every utterance. In the Yagua language of Peru, there are five distinct grammatical forms of the past tense, for example, to describe when an event occurred: a few hours prior; the day before; roughly one week to a month ago; roughly two months to two years ago; and the distant or legendary past. English is not that precise, but it is true that every time you use a verb in English, you are conveying information about time. Depending on whether something has happened already (I made dinner), is happening now (I am making dinner), or will happen in the future (I will make dinner), the speaker must pick different verb forms. 

In conclusion, the relationship between language and thought is different between all languages. People grow up learning how to speak and how to think with the language specific to that area. Because of this, things in some languages, such as Japanese, may be much less harsh compared to something in English. Time is also an example as to how concepts like time and gender are spoken differently in every language.