Language and Cultural Values

I was also intrigued by the article, "How does our Language Shape the way we Think," by Lera Boroditsky. I found her discussion of how language shapes people’s perceptions of direction and gender fascinating. However, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed by her lack of discussion of how these different perceptions actually affect how people act. She mentioned how the relationship between the word death and its gender affected how artists tended to portray this event in paintings. This is the only relationship that she shows to the reader that demonstrates the tangible effects of these differences in language. The rest is left to our imagination.

Unfortunately, my own experience with languages has similarly left me with examples of how words frame aspects in different ways, without necessarily showing how it affects people’s behavior. For example, (and I am not necessarily sure if this is true) I have been told that in Chinese the word for prosperity is constructed with the radical for house or home, and with the radical for woman. The actual structure of the character has the radical for house over the radical for woman, giving the connotation that when one has a woman in the home, one is prosperous. One could make the argument that such a connotation could influence how Chinese people view gender (women in particular) as well as marriage. However, looking at the Latin roots of many of the English words that I use every day, I would be hard-pressed to tell anyone what these roots are, what they mean, and how they affect my thinking. I am inclined to believe that the average Chinese person would be in the same boat as me.

Conversely, although it might be more difficult to show how language affects behavior, language can still inform us on how it is influenced by culture. The ‘prosperity’ example notwithstanding, another curious Chinese word is the word for teacher, or laoshi (老师). While I am not familiar with the individual meanings of the radicals that make up this character, I do remember from my study abroad trip to China that I always had to refer to my teachers as there last name first, and then the word laoshi. This is slightly different then in the United States, where we usually only give college instructors the title of professor (and even that title is only given sparingly). In China, all teachers are to be addressed like this, inside and outside the classroom, so as they are always given the respect and deference they deserve. This characteristic of Chinese culture and linguistics could be related to how Confucianism dictates how relationships are maintained between different people and different strata in society. So, although it might be more difficult to determine how language affects behavior, language and culture are so closely related that their correlation could inform scholars and others, how particular people behave.