How a Language Natures Thoughts

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Time is an idea that people have varied ways to contemplate based on their language. For example, the way English speakers talk about time is using horizontal spatial symbols like “ the best is ahead of us” but Mandarin speakers is using vertical symbols like “ the next year is the “down year” “ And there is an experiment held by Lera Boroditsky which is the followings:

Imagine this simple experiment. I stand next to you, point to a spot in space directly in front of you, and tell you, "This spot, here, is today. Where would you put yesterday? And where would you put tomorrow?" When English speakers are asked to do this, they nearly always point horizontally. But Mandarin speakers often point vertically, about seven or eight times more often than do English speakers.

Besides, English speakers tend to talk about duration with regard to length like “the conference doesn’t take long”, whereas Greek and Spanish Speakers tend to talk about time with regard to amount, emphasizing more on the words like “ big”, “ much” instead of “ long” and “short”. Let’s take English speakers as an example, they are more likely and easily to be baffled by distance information like “estimating that a line of greater length remains on the test screen for a longer period of time” (Boroditsky) while Greek speakers are more likely and easily to be perplexed by amount like “estimating that a container that is fuller remains longer on the screen.” (Boroditsky)

Teaching folks news ways of talking and see if that alters the way they think like teaching English speakers to describe duration in Greek way or to describe event order as a Mandarin. If their cognitive performance begins to look alike Greek or Mandarin speakers which mean language actually does play a crucial role in constructing the way people think. Most importantly, learning a new language does not simply means acquiring a verbal ability, but also means that the way we think has been changed from time to time which is a new way of thinking.

Conclusion

All in all, people who speak different languages do certainly think differently and that even chances of grammar can tremendously influence how we see the world. Language is a sort of essence for humans like people can hang out with friends and get a job without a degree but people cannot make friends and get hired without knowing a language. Language is a human gift which enables us to dominate the world. A language is a tool which is likely to shape the way people think. The Kuuk Thaayorre is so different from most the people in thinking as their language is a program that enables them to stay oriented. So as Boroditsky said that “appreciating its function in building our mental lives brings us one step closer to knowing the very nature of humanity”

Work cited

L. Boroditsky et al. "Sex, Syntax, and Semantics," in D. Gentner and S. Goldin- Meadow, eds., Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and Cognition(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 61–79.

L. Boroditsky, "Do English and Mandarin Speakers Think Differently About Time?" Proceedings of the 48th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society (2007): 34.

With , A. Conversation. "HOW DOES OUR LANGUAGE SHAPE THE WAY WE THINK?" HOW DOES OUR LANGUAGE SHAPE THE WAY WE THINK? Edge.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Dec. 2016. This website is mainly focused on the study of how language shapes our thought by Lera Boroditsky. She is the one who specialist in the relation between thought and language. There are so many examples to proof how language shapes our thought in terms of space, time, colour and objects.