content VOICES July 2021 - issue

Languages can also influence how we perceive colors. Boroditsky’s research compared Russian and English speakers by analyzing their ability to distinguish shades of blue. In Russian, there are two words for blue: light blue (goluboy) and dark blue (siniy). Since there is one word for the color in English (blue), the theory was that Russian speakers could distinguish more easily different shades. And the theory was proven correct: Russian speakers have the ability to differentiate the colors faster than English speakers.

Another thing that the research focused on was grammatical gender. In Romance languages like Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian, the nouns are either feminine or masculine. But what happens when the same word has different genders in different languages? Does that change anything at all? Boroditsky’s research says yes. When asked to describe the word “key” – masculine in German and feminine and Spanish – people’s answers were usually influenced by the gender of the word. German speakers were most likely to use words more related to masculinity like “hard”, “heavy” or “metal,” while Spanish speakers used more feminine words like “golden”, “little,” or “shiny”. This pattern repeats itself with a lot of other words. About “bridge” – feminine in German and masculine in Spanish – German speakers used more feminine words like “beautiful”, “elegant,” or “peaceful” while Spanish speakers used “big”, “dangerous,” or “strong”. Some of the differences between perceptions due to genders in languages can even be seen in art. One of Boroditsky’s examples is how artists represent death. “It turns out that in 85 percent of such personifications, whether a male or female figure is chosen is predicted by the grammatical gender of the word in the artist’s native language”. Since “death” is masculine in German and feminine in Russian, German painters were more likely to paint death as a man while Russian painters painted death as a woman.

With these few examples, Boroditsky showed how language could influence our thoughts about space, time, colors, and objects, but it can shape a lot more. “Other studies have found effects of language on how people construe events, reason about causality, keep track of the number, understand the material substance, perceive and experience emotion, reason about other people’s minds, choose to take risks, and even in the way they choose professions and spouses”. With all of this taken into consideration, we can positively say that the language we speak does change our thinking. These studies also open our eyes to how important languages are and how they are the greatest ability of human beings.

Rute Cardoso

Sources: Edge: How Does Our Language Shape The Way We Think? Go Fluent: More Than Words: How Language Affects The Way We Think Language Advantage: How Languages Shape The Way We Think YouTube: How Language Shapes The Way We Think | Lera Boroditsky

With these few examples, Boroditsky showed how language could influence our thoughts about space, time, colors, and objects, but it can shape a lot more.