Summary Of How Does Our Language Shape The Way We Think

For many centuries language has been overlooked as just a simple way of communication. The few who have argued its effects on the human mind have been turned away, but now we have a better understanding of its effects. We now understand that language affects our visual perception, spatial knowledge, and the way we see certain genders in inanimate objects.In the passage “How Does Our Language Shape The Way We Think” by Lera Boroditsky, states “Some make many more distinctions between colors than others.”
Color is one way that our visual perception is affected by language. The language that one speaks will determine how they see different shades of a certain language. Lera Boroditsky experimented this and proved that Russian speakers were able
Some Spanish speakers don’t even say left or right. They give you the directions just by saying the name of the street followed by east or west. When an English speaker is giving or given directions in this matter they get confused and lose their sense of orientation because their language can’t comprehend the Spanish way of direction. This is also true when a Spanish speaker receives directions from an English speaker they are also lose their sense of orientation. Furthermore, language has a way of comprehending the gender of an inanimate
Boroditsky said “German painters are more likely to paint death as a man, whereas Russian painters are more likely to paint death as a woman”. This is because different painters speak different languages which gives them a different view of the gender of an object or person. Painting is also influenced by grammar. “New grammatical gender system influences the mental representation of objects.” This is why certain bridges are designed in a certain way. The engineers who designed it, built it in a way that would fit their view of its gender depending on their language. This is why when people see a blurry image of a person or object, they see it as either a female or male. People will give it a gender just by seeing it’s exterior and what their language comprehends it as. “You’d need to make every word in the sentence agree in gender (Boroditsky 4).” This isn’t true in other languages which allows nouns to be divided into many more genders, instead of just filling a sentence with words that describe one gender. An example of this is “ Maria is my new colleague”. This sentence shows how Russians use words with the same gender meaning to complete a