It is really difficult for me to wrap my head around the idea that language shapes thought. While Lera Boroditsky does address the impact that culture has on the way we think, I remain unconvinced that it doesn't play a larger role in the language argument. Teaching people new languages does not change their cultural background and the way that they have grown up thinking. By teaching the greek usage of metaphors to english speakers might broaden their horizons and help them have another outlook on time, I do not believe that it changes the way they think about time overall. I wonder if the change would be the same or different if they were simply taught about these alternative views without bringing language into the lesson. To me, learning another language is also learning another culture. They really go hand in hand. So, it is hard for me to take them as completely separate entities.
As the United States has grown, our language has changed and so has our culture. Who is to say which one caused the other? We have become more casual people wearing t-shirts and jeans as has our language with our use of contractions and slang. Furthermore, the technological age with our use of shorthand through text messaging and email. In this case, the culture has changed the language. We have become a faster paced society because we overextend ourselves which has lead to shorthand, u in place of you and btw instead of by the way. The author has some valid points but I am just unsure that language and culture can be separated so easily.
I agree with your points. I believe that language and culture are intertwined, and that language does not determine how we think. Since the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has been largely disproven, it is hard to debate in favor of the idea that people who speak different languages think completely differently. Both language and culture work off each other, but they are two distinct entities. It is possible for one to learn one without the other. There is a difference between learning about a culture, and learning a culture. When we learn languages, we learn about the culture of the people that speak it, but we do not necessarily learn how to adapt and live within the culture of the new language we have learned.
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