Does Your Language Shape How You Think?

Title: Does your language shape how you think?
Author: Guy Deutscher
Publication Company: The New York Times
Publication Date: August 26, 2010
Class: English IB HL
Category: Other Class

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            This article from the New York Times suggests that language restricts us in what we are forced to think about. Languages are set up in different manners from other languages, and so this causes people to have different habits when speaking to another. This may also account for why people pay attention to different things. For example, in Chinese, there is no past tense or future tense, you just simply use present tense and put the word “yesterday” or “tomorrow” in front of the sentence. However, in Spanish, the verb changes according to when it was put into action. Therefore, people who grew up speaking Spanish may pay more attention to time than the people who grew up speaking Chinese. In the same manner, in some languages, we are forced to think about certain aspects such as time, gender etc. which can shape the way we think in our daily lives.

            But how do we prove this? This may just be a huge generalization, and be completely false, or it could be absolutely correct. How do we know? And also, what about the people who have grown up in other countries all their life? Do they still think in their mother tongue, or do they adapt to new languages? I know I’ve been living in Vietnam for basically my whole life and I rarely think in my mother tongue –Korean. I don’t think in Vietnamese either because my Vietnamese is very limited in what I can express. I think in English because it is the language I am most comfortable with, it’s the language I have been learning in for my whole life. Does this mean that we think in the language we learn in? Does it differ for different people? How will we know if the people are actually thinking about things such as time, or gender of the subject when talking or if it is just a habit they have formed?  Will we ever know the answer to all of this?

            After reading this article, we discussed about the importance of language in our English class. We talked about the significance of language. Language determines what we are able to express and allows us to share our thoughts and knowledge with other people. The more words there are the more effective we are able to communicate. Communication is very important because it allows for a society to build within our population; it lets us connect with other people and interact with one another. However, in the novel 1984 by George Orwell, language is restricted by the government, and the language is constantly being cut down into fewer words, all with good connotations. This restricted the people in how they expressed themselves. They were forced to be optimistic, and forced to praise rather than criticize. As language began to be shortened, they began to lose memories of what other words had meant. So does language really shape how we think? Does it determine what we are capable of thinking about or just how we describe such things? Could we communicate in other ways than using language? Would this be as effective? How would we know?

For more information: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html?_r=2&emc=eta1