Economist Debates: Does Language Constrain Thoughts?
December 15, 2010
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Posted by Michael S. Langston
This week @ the Economist’s debate series, they are discussing another interesting topic. Starring Lera Boroditsky, Assistant Professor of Psychology @ Stanford University arguing pro and Mark Liberman, Distinguished Professor in Linguistics @ University of Pennsylvania, arguing against (whole thing here):
This house believes that the language we speak shapes how we think.
Still in the first round of of the debate, the pros have a large majority with a full 75% of people agreeing. This seems self evident and may lead some to question why debate this particular topic with so much agreement.
The answer: the nuances of the argument itself. Indeed, while Mr. Lieberman’s job is to argue against the proposition, he starts his opening arguments by agreeing with the basic premise:
Properly interpreted, the proposition is true: the language we speak shapes how we think….
& of course goes directly into his disagreement:
…But the way we think also shapes the language we speak, and the way we live shapes both language and thought. When we encounter or create new ideas, we can usually describe them with new combinations of old words. And if not, we easily adapt or borrow or create the new words or phrases we need. As Edward Sapir once put it, “We may say that a language is so constructed that no matter what any speaker of it may desire to communicate … the language is prepared to do his work.”….
He goes on to define this key difference in interpretation. While he nominally agrees with the idea, society has been inundated with ideas which simply aren’t true. With discussions, articles, and not very well done research telling us all about the number of words Eskimos have for snow, whether the Apache had a word for “lie”, and even popular culture through the likes of Ayn Rand.
The crux of the issue however, is that most of these stories are either exaggerations of the truth or just completely false. Like the Hopi Eskimos, having apparently somewhere between 5 & hundreds of words for snow depending upon the source, might have specific words to identify different types of snow that other cultures don’t have.
But whether they have specific words for such things as hard iced snow, or falling snow, or wet snow, it’s not as if other languages can’t use two word phrases with adjectives and nouns to get to the same point.
Taken this way, it seems as though having more words for snow than other societies doesn’t say those other societies are somehow less equipped to speak about snow, but instead gives us some insight into what is important to the Hopi.
& then there’s the other side as well, presented by Ms. Boroditsky, which starts:
Exciting empirical advances over the past decade have at last provided us with scientific answers about how languages shape thinking. Importantly, while some of the influences of language on thought are remarkable, there is nothing strange about them, they are just a normal function of how human brains work. Let’s start with the basics of perception, mathematics and navigation, and end with the sex of toasters, social judgments and prejudice….
She moves from there to highlight interesting research in terms of various societies, such as those with more words for colors of those who do not have words for left & right. In the later example, they use more cardinal-type language to define position (such as north-east). This seems to have given them a better sense of direction than cultures where left & right are used.
Going forward, she also talks about math and number language:
For example, some languages do not have exact number words (there may be words for “few” or “many” but none for “seven” or “sixteen”). Speakers of such languages generally are not able to keep track of exact quantities—they cannot count. Without being able to count, you are unlikely to be doing algebra, solving differential equations…
Which is true in a large sense, but isn’t true in the technical one. We actually know quite a bit with respects to the evolution in math language and its use and necessity in understanding math functions above simple counting.
So humans had a need to start counting things. This need brought us new language to describe various amounts. Over time, with the advent of more and more commerce, this math language became written, and for the west, this was in Roman Numerals.
Of course anyone with experience with Roman Numerals can attest pretty easily to how difficult it would be to multiply or divide, but even that is just the starting point.
The true power of math and math thinking didn’t really happen until we stumbled upon two mythical number concepts, zero and infinity.
Take that beginning and look forward a few thousand years, and we routinely run math calculations on numbers which have no real language associated with them and numbers which can’t even be understood by humans (IE it’s hard to understand what a billion, billion stars really means, when you have no concept of what a billion of anything looks like, regardless of having a “word” for it ).
Irregardless, she goes forward to talk about more interesting research, including ethnic bias, gender specific nouns, and even points to a study which attempts to show Hebrew-Arabic bilinguals speakers seem to show more favorable attitudes towards Jews when tested in Hebrew than Arabic. (I find that claim dubious, but without more access to the research, I’ll leave that point for now.)
& while the 75% vote tally on the pro side is unlikely to change drastically, with rebuttals, expert comments, & closing statements still to come; it should be very informative in the end.
Categories: Critical Thinking, Culture
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Tags: Critical Thinking, Culture, language, The Economist
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