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Have you ever wondered how language affects time? Time is a little complex when we really get into the concept of it, and language has been shown to have a relationship with how we, as humans, perceive time. Boroditsky (2001), in their article, Does Language Shape Thought?: Mandarin and English Speakers' Conceptions of Time, investigated how language affects how we think through understanding how native speakers from different places talk about time.
Language can affect how people perceive time, freepik.com
Linguistic relativism is the concept that humans interpret and see the world in different ways because of differences in languages.
Language relativism is also known as the 'Sapir-Whorf hypothesis', which was investigated by both Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf (hence the term, Sapir-Whorf).
There are two versions of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the weak version and the strong version. The weak hypothesis suggests language affects thought, and the strong hypothesis states language outright determines thought (linguistic relativism vs linguistic determinism).
Lera Boroditsky (2001) found that language depicting time affects how time is thought about and perceived.
This provides evidence for the concept of linguistic relativism.
Boroditsky (2001) also provides evidence against linguistic determinism, or 'strong Whorf', by explaining that even though people who speak the Dani language only have 2 words for colours, they did not struggle to learn the English set of colour categories, of which there are a lot more.
Boroditsky claims that learning a new language is not just about learning to speak differently, but also learning to think differently, since there are differences between languages in types of thinking. Her most famous study, as mentioned above, shows that Native English speakers talk about, and therefore think about time in a horizontal way.
Mandarin speakers on the other hand talk about, and therefore think about time in a vertical way. There are also many accounts of bilingual speakers reporting to think and speaking in a different way when they speak different languages, and this change is not due to the words being different.
For example, when people speak in Russian, they have more freedom to speak and think in a non-literal, ironic and metaphorical way, compared to when speaking and thinking in English, in which a more literal, straightforward approach is taken.
Boroditsky's study was based on the notion that the language we speak has an affect on the way we view and perceive the world, specifically the concept of time.
This is related to linguistic relativism and linguistic determinism.
The languages Mandarin and English have different ways of speaking about time. The differences are:
According to Boroditsky, those who speak Mandarin perceive time in a vertical sense, whereas English is perceived in a linear sense, flaticon.com
The aim of Boroditsky's (2001) study was to focus on the effect of language on the way people think about and view the world.
By investigating the effects of language, Boroditsky was able to highlight how different languages affect the concept of time and how it is perceived and communicated.
If setting up someone to think about time vertically, Mandarin speakers will be quicker than Native English speakers in answering true or false questions about time.
Similarly, if setting up someone to think about time horizontally, Native English speakers will be quicker than Mandarin speakers in answering true or false questions about time.
There were 46 participants in this study, who were all Stanford University students; 26 Native English speakers, and 20 Native Mandarin speakers.
Boroditsky horizontal priming example, StudySmarter Originals - Nisma Kashif
Then she carried out different tests to see what effects the priming had.
There were 128 priming scenes that were used which included an image and statement. Half of them had horizontal priming, using words like ‘ahead’ and ‘behind’. The other half had vertical priming scenes, using words like ‘above’ and ‘below’.
Boroditsky found that Native English speakers were significantly quicker in answering time questions after being primed to think horizontally (2128 milliseconds) compared to when primed to think vertically (2300 milliseconds). This supports the hypothesis.
Mandarin speakers did not show a significant difference in reaction times when primed to think horizontally (2422 milliseconds) compared to when primed to think vertically (2428 milliseconds)
There were however differences in Mandarin speakers regarding which words were used in the target ‘time’ statements. When the words ‘earlier and later’ were used (which are more time related) the Mandarin speakers were faster in answering after vertical priming (2347 milliseconds) than after horizontal priming (2503 milliseconds).
People talking in different languages may communicate time differently, freepik.com
The results of the study show us that Native English and Mandarin speakers think about time differently.
Since Native English speakers were faster to answer true or false questions about time when primed horizontally compared to when primed vertically, it shows us that they think about and view time in a horizontal way.
Mandarin speakers were faster at answering true or false questions when primed vertically rather than horizontally (only when more time-related terms were used), which shows that they think about and view time in a vertical way. These findings were true for Mandarin speakers even though they were tested in English, which shows us that the way they think about time is consistent across the different languages they speak, and think in.
Some additional experiments were also done as part of this study. In the 2nd experiment, Boroditsky found that the age people learn a new language affects the extent to how much their thinking changes.
For example, Mandarin speakers who learn English later in life would think about time in a vertical way more than those who learnt English at an earlier time.
In the 3rd experiment, she found that when teaching a Native English speaker to speak about time in a vertical way (e.g., Monday is above Tuesday), they also got results similar to the Mandarin speakers, showing that language affects how one thinks.
All three experiments provide evidence for the fact that the way we speak (i.e. our language) affects how we think about time.
The main thesis (hypothesis) of Boroditsky's article is based on linguistic relativism, the concept that humans interpret and see the world in different ways because of differences in languages. Boroditsky conducted an experiment investigating how Native English and Mandarin speakers speak and think about time differently. Her hypotheses were:
If setting up someone to think about time vertically, Mandarin speakers will be quicker than Native English speakers in answering true or false questions about time.
Similarly, if setting up someone to think about time horizontally, Native English speakers will be quicker than Mandarin speakers in answering true or false questions about time.
Lera Boroditsky's main theory about how language shapes thought is based on the concept of linguistic relativism. Linguistic relativism is the concept that humans interpret and see the world in different ways because of differences in languages.
She then conducted an experiment which supported her theory and found that Native Mandarin speakers talk and think about time in a vertical way, whilst Native English speakers talk and think about time in a horizontal way.
Lera Boroditsky is famous for her study of language and thought, in which she investigated whether or not different languages cause people to think differently, specifically in the context of time and how it is perceived in English and Mandarin speakers.
Boroditsky claims that learning a new language is not just about learning to speak differently, but also learning to think differently, since there are differences between languages in types of thinking. Her most famous study shows that Native English speakers talk about, and therefore think about time in a horizontal way. Mandarin speakers on the other hand talk about, and therefore think about time in a vertical way. There are also many accounts of bilingual speakers reporting to think and speak in a different way when they speak different languages, and that this change is not just down to the words being different.
Australian aborigines are better at spatial navigation because their language uses cardinal coordinates when saying hello.
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