Blog 4PQ2

 Lera Boroditsky a researcher from Stanford researches language and its differences in multiple languages. In her studies, she explains that English is actually quite different from a lot of the languages used around the world. In her research, she asks “can language shape how we think?” The answer that she gives is yes and her work can back it up.

    In her first most explanative portrayal she uses a cup that shows how language is used in different languages. She states, “she broke the cup” this would, in turn, show that English is more possessive whereas in languages like Japanese or Spanish for example if one deliberately knocks the cup there is a verb to form to indicate as much. This would translate to “the cup broke itself.” However, the research that she did covered far more than just that. 

    Some further research can show that the theory of universalism is largely intact. This Theory explains that language is just a reflection of human thoughts and that most languages share patterns and Concepts with one another. This is actually raised in the text when looking at “there are five distinct grammatical forms of the past tense” in the language of Yagua a Peruvian language. This theory of universalism is heavily supported can we can see that by the fact that English is not precise, whereas the Yagua language will have a more specific way of expressing events that happened. This vagueness can derive from certain patterns like the use of pronouns not describing a specific object but simply referring to it whereas, in other languages like the one here, there is complete specificity in the entirety of their writing.

    Some issues that can be discerned from this is that in the differences of languages like the grammatical changes discussed previously, the translation over computer-mediated sources would be difficult to translate. This register/code switch would evidently cause issues that wouldn’t be easily solved. Another example of this problem would be in the use of Indonesian language. In Indonesian, “...verbs never change to express time: Make is always just ‘make’.” This would make a definite problem based off of the translation differences between languages. There are however, small solutions that can make the language translatable, like with the optional (but now required for the solution to work) use of “...already or soon…”

    More broadly speaking though, Broditisky tries to cover the “fundamental differences in how cultures convey their relationship to concepts such as space time or gender.” In understanding these fundamental differences, she could depict and solve many of the issues that arise with these language differences. However, the more broad problem that comes with this idea is that the culture differences in languages could be ruined or “disrespected” with incorrect or misuse of the language in translation. This is inevitable since the eradication of some verbs or conjugations in some languages would be used to fix for the translation of certain languages. For example, if an English speaker wanted to talk to an Indonesian speaker one of the two would have to change the way that they speak, this would obviously be through the help of a translator (virtually or physically) to make the conversation understood. Now, whether the Indonesian speaker uses English rules, or the English speaker uses Indonesian rules, they could effectively talk among themselves.