Language influences the way you think

[MJ Hardman]

And, of course, the study is a 'deficit' study -- English comes out on top!
Not difference, but hierarchy!

Deficit grammars are prohibited in my classroom.

Dr. MJ Hardman
website:  http://grove.ufl.edu/~hardman/


On 09/12/2003 12:18 PM, "Phil CashCash" <cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU> wrote:

> Language influences the way you think
> http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_818420.html
>
> Speakers of different languages not only describe the world differently
> but think about it differently too, according to a new study.
>
> Researchers used a cartoon featuring black and white cat Sylvester to
> study how language was reflected in the gestures people made.
>
> Dr Sotaro Kita of the University of Bristol's Department of Experimental
> Psychology, showed the cartoon to a group of native English, Japanese
> and Turkish speakers and then watched their gestures as they described
> the action they had seen.
>
> He found speakers of the three different languages used different
> gestures to depict the same event, which appeared to reflect the way
> the structure of their languages expressed that event.
>
> For example, when describing a scene where Sylvester swings on a rope,
> the English speakers used gestures showing an arc trajectory and the
> Japanese and Turkish speakers tended to use straight gestures showing
> the motion but not the arc.
>
> Dr Kita suggests this is because Japanese and Turkish have no verb that
> corresponds to the English intransitive verb 'to swing'.
>
> While English speakers use the arc gesture as their language can readily
> express the change of location and the arc-shaped trajectory, Japanese
> and Turkish speakers cannot as easily express the concept of movement
> with an arc trajectory so they use the straight gesture.
>
> Dr Kita said: "My research suggests that speakers of different languages
> generate different spatial images of the same event in a way that
> matches the expressive possibilities of their particular language.
>
> "In other words, language influences spatial thinking at the moment of
> speaking."
>
> Story filed: 14:06 Friday 12th September 2003
>