Communication Styles: Do We Think Differently in Different Languages? (Multiple Accents) (B2-C1/v32146)

There are more than 7,000 languages in the world so does that mean there are more than 7,000 ways of seeing it? The Whorfian hypothesis is the idea that the language we speak affects the way we see and structure the world around us.

Various people and text on screen:  So, do we think differently in different languages? OK. (Speaking Russian) Sorry, it’s like a tongue twister. That’s a brilliant question.  There are over 7,000 languages in the world.  Does that mean there are 7,000 ways of seeing it?

Panos Athanasopoulos, Professor of Linguistics Lancaster University:  The Whorfian Hypothesis as it’s known, which is the idea that our language affects our thinking, has been debated for decades, even centuries.

Christopher Hart, Professor of Linguistics Lancaster University:  There’s a growing amount of experimental evidence that differences across languages have an influence on the way speakers of those languages conceive of the world. We can see that different languages structure the world in different ways, they carve up the various continua and different types of relations in the world.

Sophie Scott, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience:  The way that different languages chop up the world almost can vary, and that does actually influence how you see that world.

Dutch/French Woman:  I think language changes everything about the way you think.

Youruba – Nigerian Man:  I go into a certain mindset, I sound deeper. I don’t know why.

Portuguese – Brazilian Woman:  I perceive situations differently, I react differently.

German Woman:  I think I’m more grounded and more in touch with my emotions in German.

Dutch/French Woman:  Yeah, it makes me feel more assertive when I’m speaking Dutch because you just get straight to the point.

Athanasopoulos:  It’s not just for talking – language is for organizing an otherwise messy world into identifiable categories. It gives us ready labels.

German Man:  It’s like Lego, you  add another word to the word and that makes it more precise.

Dutch/French Woman:  Language in French is super-gendered – so everything has a masculine or feminine. And it just makes everything feel a bit more one or the other.

Scott:  If you have a word like bridge, if it’s in a language where it is carrying a masculine gender, then bridges will be described by people slightly differently. So, it might be its usefulness or its power might be more associated with the feminine gender whereas its strength and its size might be more associated with the masculine gender.

Hart:  The structure of a language forces us to attend to certain aspects of reality that are relevant for a language, at the moment of using that language. It’s known as the thinking for speaking hypothesis. There’s evidence that language involves some kind of image simulation and that that has a consequence for how we perceive of certain events.

Scott:  Color is quite a complex property of a visual world. Your brain is decoding color in quite a complicated way.

Athanasopoulos:  So you have many languages that have a term to denote both green and blue and typically we call this a “grue” term. You find this in languages like the Himba, for example, in the Namibian plains. In this experiment we asked participants to look at the color tile and then after 30 seconds we show them the full array of colors and we say, “Now, pick the one that you just saw.” And it’s a very difficult task if you’re an English speaker but a Himba speaker can do it like child’s play because that color is central to them. You simply cannot recognize colors that are not easily encoded in your native language.

Hart:  I think by virtue of being born into a particular culture and the language that goes with that culture, we’re almost certainly given to think in a particular way.

Scott:  The human brain doesn’t work out of the box. You grow up and you’re growing up learning languages in particular environments. By the time you’re dealing with an adult, you’re dealing with a brain that has been trained up to be an expert along a number of quite specific dimensions.

Athanasopoulos:  There’s actually another very, very good reason to learn a language. That’s simply to gain another perspective on the world.

Uzbek (Uzbekistan) Man:  You can actually say a lot more, a lot quicker, in Uzbek than you can in English which is quite interesting. They used to be nomadic which meant that the language has to be a lot quicker because you were speaking to people while moving around and all this kind of stuff.

Hart:  But in a sense, language is culture and culture is language.

Uzbek Man:  Speaking a different language is almost a gateway into a completely different cultural understanding.

Various Speakers:

(Korean) Do we think differently in different languages?

(Russian) Do we think differently in different languages?

(Portuguese) Do we think differently in different languages?

Athanasopoulos:  Cognitive diversity I think is at the core of human nature. It is probably, if you are looking for universals, diversity is probably the one true universal of humanity.

1. CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages): Standardized scale for language proficiency assessment.
2. Whorfian Hypothesis: Theory suggesting language shapes thought and perception.
3. Continua: Gradual variations or scales representing different aspects.
4. Relations: Connections or associations between elements.
5. Cognitive Neuroscience: Study of neural mechanisms underlying cognition.
6. Gendered Language: Language with gender attributes for nouns.
7. Thinking for Speaking Hypothesis: Language structure guiding attention to specific aspects of reality.
8. Image Simulation: Mental representation or simulation of images related to language.
9. Grue Term: In languages, denotes both green and blue as a single category.
10. Nomadic: Pertaining to a lifestyle involving constant movement or travel.
11. Cognitive Diversity: Variety of cognitive processes and perspectives among individuals.
12. Universals: Shared characteristics or principles applicable across different cultures or situations.
13. Tongue Twister: Sequence of words or sounds challenging to articulate quickly.
14. Temporal Accuracy: Precision in using verb tenses to convey time relationships accurately.
15. Syntactical Nuances: Subtle variations or intricacies in sentence structure.
16. Real-world Scenarios: Situations reflecting everyday life experiences.
17. Linguistic Proficiency: Mastery or skill in using language effectively.
18. Cultural Understanding: Insight and comprehension of different cultural norms, values, and practices.
19. Color Decoding: Cognitive process of interpreting and understanding colors.
20. Gateway: Entrance or pathway leading to a different cultural perspective or understanding.

1. How many languages do you speak?
2. Do you get the sense that you think and express ideas differently in different languages?
3. Are you familiar with the Whorfian Hypothesis?

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