Think? By Guy Deutscher

Krista Lucero
11/12/13
Summary on Does Your Language Shape How You Think? I found the article Does Your Language Shape How You Think? by Guy Deutscher to be very interesting. At first glance I assumed it would cover language dialects and how there are stereotypes connected with many. However, this article was more towards language itself and whether or not it allows a speaker to perceive certain concepts of reality or to think certain thoughts. Though the article did not cover my initial questions I had before reading, I was pleasantly surprised and interested with its content. The author begins to describe this theory that language and one’s perception of reality of things are directly related by using the gender assignment rule in some
languages, such as Spanish. Inanimate objects are assigned a gender, “he” or “she”, as opposed to the English “it”.
He describes how though the speakers of Spanish may think of la cuchara (the spoon) to be feminine, and describe it femininely as maybe being curvy, they are very aware that the spoon is not in fact a girl. The same goes for masculine objects such as el sombrero (hat) which can be described as covering from the sun or protecting your head, being worn by men. What I found most interesting was some languages sense of direction. Instead of using terms relative to the body, such as behind, in front, left or right, some languages use geographical location and direction, north, south, east and west. So when recounting an event or memory instead of saying “I ran through my yard” the speaker would say “I ran westward through my yard”. The same directions would be used in dancing or giving directions. The conclusion of this article was that even though some languages may have gender assignment, they speakers are still very able to distinguish the difference between a fork and a lady, and even if the only directions used are geographic the speaker is still away of an objects location relative to their body. So even though our language may or may not have words
for certain concepts or thoughts, we can still all perceive the just the same. This article was very easy to read and would be for anybody, even if they had no prior knowledge on the subject. I personally did not know of Guy Deutscher but after a bit of research I found that he is an Israeli linguist who has worked for a few colleges, has several academic publications, and has written articles for the New York and London Times. This particular article Does Your Language Shape How You Think? was published in the New York Times on August 29, 2010. I don’t think he was very biased in any way because he reported more fact, observation and description more than his own opinion. He wrote this article in response to a previous, more bias claim by Benjamin Lee Whorf that claimed some languages are inadequate in their ability to understand certain concepts such as time and space. Deutscher does go on to describe some components of certain languages but not so much as a tangent as to better the readers understating of his theory. I think he covered this subject to a very good extent and did not leave out any questions I currently have. His observation on some language’s sense of direction was especially interesting. It made me want to be more aware of my location in space and use the geographical terms rather than egocentric terms to more fully explain and understand situations.

Bibliography
Guy Deutscher, Does Your Language Shape How You Think?, The New York Times Magazine, August 29, 2010, Page MM42 of the Sunday Magazine.
https://nmsu.instructure.com/courses/807594/assignments/2562095