SWITCHING BETWEEN LANGUAGES

3/27/2013

Read the following text and then answer the questions below. (400-450 words.) Remember to upload your answer on Managebac. Deadline: Friday, 4:30 pm

From your textbook, page 68.

"According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, language determines our experience of reality, and we can see and think only what our language allows us to see and think. To give a well-known example, the Inuit are said to have many different words for snow, and their sophisticated snow vocabulary help them to make finely grained snow discriminations. As a result, they see and experience snow-covered landscapes quite differently from the rest of us."

Answer the following question in 250 words: To what extent do you think (and act) differently, or perceive things differently when you switch between languages?

10 Comments

Alex Sapienza

3/27/2013 11:58:39 pm

From experience, when speaking in another language, one thinks quite differently then when speaking in their native language. When speaking in a native language, one speaks quickly without checking if all your words are being used correctly and if you are making sense. When communicating in an uncomfortable language, one thinks about how they word their sentences and speak slower and put a lot of effort into how they understand the people he is speaking with. Speaking in a different language is often a time where people learn a lot about others because of how they speak. When a person learns a new language it is very obvious that they are speaking different from their normal tone and understanding, they speak with a conviction and try to completely understand their peer. A person understands only what they learn and when speaking in a different language, they are much more open to new ideas. They listen often for what their peer is speaking about and try to understand them by how they speak and how they perceive them.

Felipe Mindermann

3/28/2013 02:11:29 pm

When there is a switch between languages, there is indeed a change in the way people think and perceive things. If one speaks his native language, it is easy to express everything you think, and that immediately. With another language, we first think, and then speak. Sometimes this is also an advantage to only say the things you want people to hear, and not everything in your mind. Starting to learn a new language is a challenge, and limits the information given, or even the actual sense that should be shown. Although we stated that it is good to think a while before answering a question, to understand a language is something essential for human communication. If we understand, we perceive, so the more we understand, the more we perceive. Although we still have the same thinking process, other factors impact these changes. And it is not only the skills one has in the language, but also it's culture. While some languages are relatively neutral, others use passion - facial expressions and gesturing. And these things affect the way we talk and act, the knowledge we gain. So we can say that the more languages we know, the more ways of communication, our knowledge increases with the fact that we have more ways of interpreting and perceiving the given message, as well as answering to it. All in all I will say that a person acts, thinks and perceives very different with other languages, using and changing them.

Evseeva Elena

3/28/2013 11:51:31 pm

Language is one of the biggest parts of any human’s life. It is the tool, which help us to communicate and also to categorize. People are using language they grew up with to distinguish, make sense of the universe, and determine things around them. Probably, language is the most common way to perceive. But each language had it’s own words and the meaning of this words that determine the thing. Those meaning can be different so people wont get each other talking about the same thing. For example, I grew up in Russia and I perceive world according to Russian language rules, grammar and of cause the meaning of the words. When I moved to USA obviously language change for me was huge since Russian has nothing to do with English at all. But we do have words that come from another languages but Russian perceives it differently. For example when people ask me for USB, I usually give them the cable that connects phone and computer. And people just don’t get me because they expect a small thing where the information can be put from the computer. In Russia we call it a flash card while in USA people call it USB and USB in Russia is a cable. It’s just one of thousands examples where different languages have different definitions for same words. I believe that those differences affect people’s view of the world and their perception of the same things. People from different countries will have difficulties in understanding each other and confusion calling the same thing but determining it differently.

Hanne Grotle Nore

3/29/2013 01:09:19 am

Language is human beings` way of identifying, categorizing and understanding. It is also a way of communicating. The world heritages and cultures have developed different languages and created barriers of communication. All languages in the world have different degrees of descriptions, categories and synonyms. Therefore people might observe nuances and details to varying extent. However, there was a time when language did not exist and we were able to recognize and understand perfectly fine. It is our human traits and cultural backgrounds that direct our attention and enable us to perceive things differently, language only enable us to describe the things. I experience difficulties with describing some things that are particular for Norway or popular in Norway and not in the US to a person from the US. However, I believe that if a person learned Norwegian without ever visiting Norway, the person would still not direct his/her attention to the same as a Norwegian. Therefore I think I still perceive things the same way when I switch from Norwegian to English because I direct my attention the same way. I might not have the same words to describe the things I perceive, but there are always more ways of describing and making another person understand.

Sabina Lenskaya

3/29/2013 05:34:40 am

Language is closely connected to our experience of reality. With the help of the language one can describe what he sees, and then use reason to analyze the information. Language is the core of the process of thinking itself. There are many different languages in the world, which vary in grammatical structure, vocabulary and the writing systems. Each of the languages gives its own names to the objects and events. In many cases there are unique geographical or social phenomena, which become the part of a culture. The vocabulary to describe them has no analogies in another languages. That is why people who speak this language have a broader perspective on the world they live in, then other people know. These unique words in the language affect the way of thinking and acting. For example, my two native languages are Ukrainian and Russian. In Ukrainian exists the vocative case, which does not exist in Russian language. I was very certain that the Ukrainian way to call people and objects in vocative case is right and did many mistakes in my speech while talking to friends. So my Russian peers thought that I am acting strange. The specific mixed vocabulary affected my way of thinking: it has expanded with the new words and slightest tones of meaning. Russian and Ukrainian alphabets are quite similar, but when I started to learn Latin-based languages I found it very hard. Soon I got used to the alphabet, but the pronunciation is still an issue. I change my voice and my accents according to the languages I speak every day. So sometimes my voice changes because of different intonations. In every language there are many expressions to be polite to others. And they differ in many ways and it is the reason why I even adapt my social behavior when I switch languages. However, there is still a confusion among what I can describe with my native languages and with foreign ones, because definitions for cultural traditions differ a lot.

Arthur Yeremenko

3/29/2013 07:31:21 am

I speak English and Russian languages fluently and have some knowledge of German and Kazakh. At the international school in which I currently study, I use Russian and English throughout the day. While it may seem that the only things that change when I switch between the two languages are the words, there is much more going on. In this case, it is not just the labeling of the thoughts or objects changes: the way I think and act becomes different itself.

First of all, I use the languages for different purposes: English for most of my studies and communication, whereas Russian only for some short conversations and one of my lessons. Since I am learning new terms and concepts in English, quite often without learning their equivalents in Russian, I understand them much better while I am in the English-speaking environment. If I will try to explain some concepts that I have learned in English using Russian language, in most of the cases it will be harder for me to do so. This is why using English language quite often makes me more confident in conversations. However, the level of my English skills is still much lower than that of the native speakers. What this means is that if the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is true, my experience of reality is limited to the abilities of my thinking in English language, which brings me to a good incentive to study English language harder.

Saperthan Sivasuthan Vivekananthan

3/29/2013 11:27:02 am

I can speak 4-5 languages, and from my experience I know that those language have something in common, and something totally different.
Let’s start with Norwegian. Norwegian is the language of the people from Norway. The language has some similarities with their neighbor countries Sweden and Denmark, but some part of it is still different too. That’s how different languages are separated in like Norwegian, Danish and Swedish, even though you can understand each other well.
Moreover, Norwegian belongs to the Germanic languages, and it is one of the Scandinavian languages, but for me it is easier to change from Norwegian to English, because the language consist of the main basic rules in grammar, common words and it’s explicit on what’s make different from those other languages.

In addition to this, if I comparing this with my mother tongue Tamil, it is totally different from the way the language are been used. The grammar are totally different and even some words in this language does not consist in dictionary of other language, some examples are when you describe more detailed about an object, and some words in Norwegian does not mean anything in Tamil, but how can I understand those languages to perceive the idea with switching between languages?

Furthermore, I can clearly have a conversation with a Norwegian guy and my English teacher without having any doubt, while I am starting to talk. Basically the idea you are trying to say is the same, but you perceive it in different ways of using words.

French is another example of using a language differently to think and act on how to perceive things differently. The grammar is totally different from English, and basically you are putting words in reverse from English, but still it gives us an understanding of the context, how?

That’s what is making a difference between language, and even the grammar or the language are totally different, you can understand and have a conversation in that language differently.

Finally, I have to mention that I am switching from four different languages every day. I have a conversation with my Norwegian friends in Norwegian, a conversation in Tamil with my parents and friends, also a conversation in English with international students, and in addition to this I also have a conversation in French with my cousin and friends from France, when I am actually changing or switching between languages I do not think about that, because it feels normal, but sometimes I know something in one language that I do not know in the other language, which making me wonder about that. Otherwise I do not think about changing into different languages, and that is how I think (and act) differently, or perceive things differently when you switch between languages. That’s what the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is all about. We can perceive things differently in what our language allows us to see and think.

Tu Hoang

4/21/2013 09:38:35 am

I myself raised up bi lingual, with Vietnames and German.And I also went to a school which was based on language so learned also French,Latin and of course English. With knowing all this languages it is kind of amazing to see the world in all different perspectives. Languages are not just a way to communicate for me, for me they all have different attributes. German is strict and rough, Vietnamese is fast, French is soft and fluently, all this attributes makes me to a different person when I switch the languages.Another point is that I lived in the countries of the languages that I know except Rom 300 b.c. because Latin is not a spoken language anymore. But living in France, Vietnam,Germany and in the U.S. gave me the opportunity to see how people are or how they perceive things with a different native language. And in my opinion they all act like I described the languages before. For example when it comes to let us say a conversation about the weather. In German I would describe it how it is let us say beautiful or great but in Vietnames I would make a say the weather is beautiful like the most beauty person in the world or something like this I would make a comparative to describe the weather.Even if the languages are all different they have at least one in common, they help me to communicate with people and this is in my opinion the most important thing about a language.

Benjamin Hyungjin Oh

4/21/2013 06:01:02 pm

Language is the tool that enables people to communicate, which is the factor that makes human being unique. It means that language is the huge part of our life. Since the world is developed, the world becomes globalized and people start to learn new languages. For my personal experience, I agree that the switching language can affect people’s thinking hugely. As a Korean, I can speak Korea as a first language, English, and Chinese and they all have different characteristics. First of all, in Korean, there are tons of expressions that can represent one word. For example, Korean has over 10 expressions of word “blue” that have all different feelings. Meanwhile, English and Chinese prefer straight forward expressions and use different type of grammar which drove me crazy. Also, when I learned different languages, the most difficult things to learn are the idioms. Because idioms are made based on their own cultures, languages from different cultures have their own ways of idioms even though the meanings are pretty similar. It means that language is significant not only to help people to communicate but also to represent the cultures that it comes from. Like this, the difference of languages that people use can affect hugely to make people think differently.

Yuri

6/18/2013 10:20:34 am

From my experience, I can speak three languages. I know that those language have something in common, and something totally different.
And I think when there is a switch between languages, will definately change in the some way and indluence how people think and perceive things. If I speakmy native language chinese, it is easy to detect and express what I really think in a short time. With another language, I wil first translate and then speak. Sometimes this is also an advantage to only say the things you want people to hear, and not everything in your mind. Also in my opinion, learn a new language is a challenge and we really need a lot courage, and limits the information given, or even the actual sense that should be shown.it can also help us in some way to understand a language is something essential for human communication. If we understand, we express we detect, we perceive, that would make our life much easier. Although we still have the same thinking process, other challenge still waiting for us. for example culture. While some languages are relatively neutral, others use passion - facial expressions and gesturing. And these things affect the way we talk and act, the knowledge we gain. So we can say that the more languages we know, the more ways of communication, our knowledge increases with the fact that we have more ways of interpreting and perceiving the given message, as well as answering to it. All in all I will say that a person acts, thinks and perceives very different with other languages, using and changing them.

SWITCHING BETWEEN LANGUAGES

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