How Language Influences Thinking
Researchers have examined how language influences thinking. The notion that various languages affect cognitive skills differently goes back centuries. Linguistics in United States and other parts of the world have had different views about language and thinking. Some think language influences thinking, and others believe language does not influence thinking. Edward, Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf examined how language difference affects thinking among different people. The researcher’s findings were met with excitement, but there was a problem. The researchers did not have proof to back up their argument.
As a result, researchers conducted different studies to determine the relationship between language and thinking. The studies have given differing findings. Some studies show the relationship between language and thinking and others do not. Failure to use a diverse sample has affected research on language and thinking. Researchers do not use a diverse sample and do not test for various concepts that show the effect of language on thinking once. Some researchers have focused on time and others space. This has affected understanding on effect of language on thinking.
How language influences thinking
People around the world communicate with each other using different languages, and every language requires different things from the speaker. Different words have different meanings in various cultures. Though language differs from each other in different ways, it does not mean people think differently. Examining different dimensions of human experience helps understand how language influences how people think. That is time, relationship with other people, space and causality. It determines whether speakers of different languages attend to remember and reason about the world differently due to language difference (Boroditsky, 2011).
Research on time in different languages has shown that people have different reasoning on time depending on their language. Some time elements are apparent in people experience with the world. People know that every moment in time only occurs once, and one can be in one place at a time. Also, people know they can never go back and that most aspects of their experiences are temporary. Therefore, a person experiences continuous unidirectional change that is marked by the appearance of objects and events and disappearance. These aspects of time are supposed to be common in all cultures and languages. People from different cultures and languages see time as one dimensional directional entity, and this helps see the sequential order of activities. People use different terms like behind/ ahead instead of narrow/ wide to describe time (Fuhrman & Boroditsky, 2010).
However, there are different aspects of time observed in the world. The aspects include movement of time horizontally, vertically, forward, back, right, left etc. The aspects are not specified in experience with the world. However, the aspects are specified in language via spatial metaphors. People speaking different languages utilize spatial metaphors to talk about time. People use terms from space domain to talk about time in the future. These aspects of time differ across languages. The conception of the aspects depends on how people talk about them. Boroditsky (2001) examined a single aspect of time and how different ways of talking about time resulted to different ways of thinking about the aspect.
Boroditsky (2001) claims that people in English use terms such as front/ back to refer to time. People talk about the exciting times ahead of them and challenges behind them. Also, people can push events forward or deadlines back. People speaking English use similar terms utilized to describe asymmetric horizontal spatial relationships to arrange events. Additionally, people in Mandarin Chinese use similar terms (front/back) to describe time. They use qi’an (front) and ho’u (back) to describe time. Mandarin speakers utilize vertical metaphors to describe time. They use terms such as Sha’ng (up) and Xi’a (down) to describe events, months, weeks etc. They refer to early events as Sha’ng and late events as Xi’a. Although, English speakers can use vertical spatial terms to describe time, the terms are not common as in Mandarin.
Therefore, English and Mandarin speakers differ in how they describe time as Mandarin use vertical and horizontal terms more than English speakers. English speakers use horizontal terms mostly. The Mandarin terms Sha’ng and Xi’a are similar to next/ following, last/previous and earlier/ later in English. Earlier and later terms in English are similar to Sha’ng and Xi’a in Mandarin as they determine the sequence of events. The term Sha’ng refers to events near to their past and Xi’a to events near the future. The English terms earlier and later refer to events close to the future and the past respectively. Thus, the terms before/ after, ahead/behind and forward/back help in ordering events according to the direction of motion of time and observer (Boroditsky, 2001).
Boroditsky (2001) determined how language shapes thoughts using the concept of time. He determined whether the differences between the way Mandarin and English describe time lead to variation in how they think about time. He determined whether utilizing spatial language to describe time affected online processing. In addition, the researcher determined whether using metaphors had a long term effect on processing. Boroditsky (2001) asserts that people use spatial knowledge to describe time and think about it. People use relational information provided by spatial primes to reason.
Moreover, spatial metaphors offer relational strictures for time aspects that do not have obvious structures from real experiences.
Utilizing spatial metaphors to describe time promotes structural alignment between the horizontal and vertical dimension. Language promotes mapping between time and space and can be stored in the time domain. Hence, invoking mapping regularly affects thinking. For instance, English speakers might develop to reason about time in a horizontal manner even when not processing spatiotemporal metaphor. On the other hand, mandarin speakers might learn to think about time vertically (Boroditsky, 2001).
Boroditsky (2001) conducted an experiment to determine how utilizing spatial metaphors to describe time has an immediate and long term effect on how people think about time. He used 26 English and20 Mandarin speakers. The participants were required to answer a spatial priming question and then a target question about time. The researcher used horizontal spatial relations and vertical relations as spatial primes. The questions tested the immediate impact of spatial metaphors on processing, and he used horizontal spatiotemporal metaphors. People should understand spatial metaphor after seeing a horizontal spatial time and vice versa. The other questions tested the long term impact of metaphor on thinking and the researcher did not use a metaphor.
Boroditsky (2001) used terms such as earlier and later to test thinking about time. Boroditsky (2001) claims people use spatial facts to reason about time. This happens if the metaphors used in a native language do not have a long term impact on thinking. In this case, the mandarin speakers should be able to answer the temporal target questions faster if their native language does not have a long term impact on their thinking about time. They should answer the questions faster after resolving the vertical spatial times compared to horizontal spatial primes.
Conversely, English speakers should be faster to answer the target questions after the horizontal spatial primes as English speakers use horizontal metaphors. The English and Mandarin speakers completed the activity in English and hence helped determine the impact of native language on thinking. Boroditsky (2001) stated that language is critical in shaping thinking if mandarin showed a vertical bias in thinking about time.
The results showed that the participants were impacted differently by the spatial primes. The English and Mandarin participants answered spatial temporal questions faster after horizontal primes compared to vertical primes. The participants answered questions involving before/ after faster. The findings revealed that spatial knowledge helps in online processing of spatiotemporal metaphors. In addition to that, the participants differed when answering purely temporal questions that involved earlier/later.
English participants answered the purely temporal questions faster after resolving horizontal primes than vertical primes. The Mandarin participants answered questions structured using purely temporal terms such as earlier/ later faster. They resolved vertical primes faster than horizontal primes and hence managed to answer the questions. Boroditsky (2001) associated this with the dominance of vertical metaphors in Mandarin. Mandarin use vertical metaphors to describe time (Fuhrman & Boroditsky, 2010).
Further, the researcher noted that English and mandarin speakers made errors when answering questions using earlier/later terms. English speakers answered questions focusing on time faster after horizontal primes than vertical primes. Also, questions structured using before/ after had a shorter reaction time compared to questions structured in earlier / later terms. The researcher attributed the difference to the variation in reading time between the terms. Earlier/ later terms had one to two syllables longer than before/after terms. Also, English speakers solved questions concerning time faster if they used horizontal primes than if they used vertical primes (Núñez & Eve, 2006).
Mandarin speakers answered the questions faster in horizontal and vertical primes. However, the primes affected the response time differently. Mandarin participants answered questions structured using before/after faster using horizontal primes than vertical primes. The Mandarin participants answered questions structured using earlier/late faster using vertical primes than horizontal prime. Thus, the Mandarin participants answered target questions faster than English participants. Boroditsky (2001) concluded that language influences how people think.
The mandarin and English participants thought differently about time. English participants recognized that March comes earlier than April faster due to horizontal spatial metaphors. English speakers use horizontal spatial metaphors to describe time, and this influenced their thinking. In addition, Mandarin participants recognized March comes earlier than April due to vertical primes. Mandarins use vertical metaphors to describe time. The mandarin participants depicted vertical bias when reasoning for English. This shows that language encouraged habits in thinking can function irrespective of the language a person is currently reasoning for. The study results show that the experience one has with a language shapes his or her thinking (Levinson, 2003).
Boroditsky (2001) conducted another experiment to determine how experience with another language influences how one thinks. The investigator used mandarin- English speaker with mandarin as the first language. The researcher determined how second language learning affects thinking. The participants started learning English at different ages. The time the participants started learning English had an impact on their thinking. Mandarin speakers who began learning English late had a bias in thinking vertically about time than those who learned English earlier.
The vertical bias was independent of the length of exposure to the second language. Participates who began to learn English early had less vertical bias. The participants showed less of mandarin reasoning about time. On the other hand, participants who started learning English late in life showed a greater bias. The participants’ first language (mandarin) influenced their way of thinking. The participants had a greater vertical bias in English than in other languages (Lee, 1996).
Boroditsky (2001) argument was supported by other researchers. Cassanto, Boroditsky, Philips, Greene (2004) determined the effect of language on thinking. The researchers claim that language affects people’s experience with the world. This was evidenced in a study conducted to determine the effect of language on thinking among English, Indonesian, Spanish and Greek speakers. The research outcome showed that the four groups used spatial metaphors to describe time. The mapping of time and space using metaphors varied from one language to another. A corpus research showed that English and Indonesian speakers mapped duration onto linear distance like a long time.
On the other hand, Greek and Spanish speakers mapped duration onto quantity such as much time. Psychophysical time estimation research was done to determine whether the differences impacted the temporal thinking of the speakers. The researchers noted that the differences influenced temporal thinking of the speakers. The investigators claim that spatial metaphors in native languages have an influence on the way people represent time mentally. Additionally, language shapes mental processes. It shapes primate and low level processes including estimating durations briefly (Casasanto, 2008).
Cassanto, Boroditsky, Philips, Greene (2004) agree with Whorf’s argument about language and thinking. Whorf claimed that the concept of time and space are influenced by experiences in the world. Also, Whorf stated that language influences time and space. The structures of languages influence time and space and how people think about events. Language helps establish the mapping between time and quantity. It also establishes the relationship between time and distance.
Conclusion
Researchers have varied views regarding language and thinking. Some researchers believe language does not influence thinking and others claim language influences thinking. Researchers have done many studies on language and thinking. They have determined how a person’s language influences thinking. Studies have examined thinking among English, mandarin, Greek, Spanish and Indonesian speakers. The findings from the studies have proved that language affects thinking. The language structures differ from one language to another. The language structures influence thinking or how people think and describe events. They influence mental processes and hence thinking.
English speakers use different words to describe events and time from other native speakers. The metaphors used influence how English speakers think about events. Learning a new language also influences how one thinks. Learning English as a second language from an early age reduces bias in thinking using English language, but increases bias for the native language. This is because a person learns new metaphors and words used in a certain language at an early age and this influences his or her thinking.
Reference
Boroditsky, L. (2001). Does language shape thought? Mandarin and English speakers’ conceptions of time. Cognitive Psychology 43(1): 1–22.
Casasanto, D. (2008). Who’s afraid of the big bad Whorf? Cross linguistic differences in temporal language and thought.
Fuhrman, O.,& Boroditsky, L. (2010). Cross-cultural differences in mental representations of time: Evidence from an implicit nonlinguistic task. Cognitive Science 34 (8): 1430–1451.
Language Learning 58(1): 63–79.
Lee, P. (1996). The Whorf theory complex. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Levinson, S. C. (2003). Language and mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Núñez, R., & Eve, S. (2006). With the future behind them. Cognitive Science 30(3): 401–450.
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