It doesn’t take a lot to realize that a certain language
is not only the literal meanings of words. An activity as informal as a
telephone activity played in class already shows us how languages are complex and
carry cultural values within them.
Translating words or phrases in between languages can be
often tricky. The BBC Horizon video on seeing color, reveals a fascinating
aspect about colors and languages. The Himba, of northern Namibia classify
color totally different than we do, as this makes the translation of certain
colors, impossible. The fact that different languages have different color
spectrums is a clear identifier of all the cultural values that a language
carries.
On the article “Does Your Language Shape How You Think”,
published on The New York Times, points several aspects on languages
differences. A key aspect of language, is how we analyze the gender of things.
The article extensively shows how with languages having different genders for a
thing, affects the culture’s perception of it. In French, a fork (la
fourchette), is feminine, causing people to assimilate the fork with female
human voices. On the other hand, Spanish speaking people wanted the fork (el
tenedor) to have a male voice, as the work is masculine in Spanish.
Furthermore, the article showed other factors that build a
language, such as navigation. Showing examples of different cultures, the
reporter argued that in some languages egocentric coordinates are predominant
while in others, only geographic directions are used. This affects how people
who speak a language perceive the world and have a tremendous influence of how
a speaker of a language will perceive space.
Another interesting factor from the article is how
different languages incorporate spoken language. Depending on the language, a
person will have to construct phrases that include details. And the astonishing
thing is that the details are determined based on the language. For example, in
English, you need to specify when an event happened (past, present, or future)
while in Chinese, this is not required.
The chapter “Language as a Way of Knowing”, from the ToK
book, also gave fundamental reasons for why languages can’t be seen as a simple
denotation. A simple word like “rock” is not literal in any way. There are
several different interpretations to it and this happens to signs to. We
inference what is happening on a sign, based on our cultural perception, and
then act based on our understanding.
Further than that, metaphors take languages even further
away from being denotations, changing completely how we perceive the world
through language.
Summing all of this up, the hypothesis developed by Whorf,
the linguistic relativity hypothesis, claims that the particular language one
speaks will make one think drastically different of the world. With all of the
examples already found, it is difficult to say languages are denotations and
leaves us to think of who we would be if we spoke a different language.
Pedro, I believe you were able to provide us relevant examples to prove your point. I liked how you cited each example and briefly talked about it. Your text is very straight to the point and not confusing at all. Very well written with a vocabulary that enhances comprehension. Nice job.
ReplyDeleteI think what really brought together your article was how you linked everything back to the Sapir Whorf hypothesis. I think that this ties all of your examples together and makes it even more powerful because we see evidence of language changing different things in our mind, and it's not explicitly stated in the studies themselves, but when we see it written clearly like that, explaining that all of this explains how language changes our thinking.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI like that you linked not only the activities we did in class but also the reading and the videos we watched. I also liked that there was a conclusion to help the readers not get lost in your blog.
ReplyDelete