Language and Thought

[rowyn]

A nifty article from the Wall Street Journal on the ways in which the language one speaks may influence the way one thinks. Neat stuff!

Comments

[level-head.livejournal.com]

It is, indeed, a very interesting article.

Not only is it rich with examples and experiments, it also mentions the theories of Noam Chomsky, and effectively removes support for them.

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[rowyn]

It made me think of Orwell's hypothesis in 1984: that by changing the structure of language and what words were available in it, you would also be able to change what people thought about or were even capable of thinking about.

One of the things I wondered is if there were any trade-offs: if a language that requires you to think about space in absolute terms improves one's sense of direction, are there any disadvantages to not thinking about the relationship between objects instead? Are there things that you become more likely to miss at the same time that something else becomes more likely to be noticed, because the structure of a language must inevitably emphasizes certain things over others? Or is it possible for one language to simply be more useful in all respects than another?

And I can't help wondering what kinds of thought patterns English promotes, with its weird collection of rules and exceptions and vocabulary looted from so many other languages.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

I take your point on 1984, and I agree with you.

One of the things I wondered is if there were any trade-offs:

The article seems to make this case. For the various specializations in language, there seemed to be openings and vulnerabilities.

One of them not explored, but that intrigued me, was the notion of people hard-coded to compass points--but suddenly trying to orient themselves in space. Or in a virtual world in which compass points were completely arbitrary, and for which no physical clues might be provided.

I suspect that these folks would be more disoriented than most. They'd be left right out--without the concepts of left and right.

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[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I've heard of some of this stuff before, but there were some neat examples there. And anything that insults Chomsky is good with me. c.c

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Heh. When I mentioned this to Gwendel, she pointed out how disoriented I seemed to be whenever bringing up the issue of driving directions. I have never had any remarkable ability to figure out east from west without landmarks, just to be clear. Still, I had for so long been spoiled on directions in the midwest, where the convention had been to go east on this road, north so far on that one, and so forth - because those were the flatlands, and roads often tended to follow nice north/south/east/west orientation (and the exceptions were exceptions and thus could be managed).

Then, I moved to Asheville, mountainous country, and when I got directions that involved turning right here or left there, and tried to clarify, "So, is that NORTH, or SOUTH?" and I'd often get funny looks. It's only slightly better for me in this regard in Florida; there are roads that tend to run straight and just might be lined up with the cardinal directions for at least a stretch, but there are so many lakes and ponds that things are still a lot more "squiggly" than in the midwest.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

*chuckle*

My habit in giving directions, for decades now, has been to say "turn right (which is north), then travel about one-half mile to X street, then turn left (which is west)..."

I use both.

Where I live, the freeway that is marked "North and South" actually runs east and west. This complicates things. It's not even "slightly northeast"--it's lined up right on an east-west orientation. Elsewhere along its course, this isn't true, but for local directions that doesn't help.

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