How Language Affects Perception Free Essay Example, 3000 words

This paper tells that language it would seem is a cultural system and as such, it not only classifies objects but also ideas. Now consider the second level of language (or the second relationship between language and perception), that in which more than one person interacts, the first thing we need to identify has to do with which codes of interpretation we have. Stafford states that society plays a role in the formation of language, claiming that even aspects of society that are not directly associated with language have an effect on the development of language; A society where horses are revered will have many words for horses and horse things - not because horses talk, but because people talk about their horses. She states that anything that is considered important in society is easily discernable by the fact that the vocabulary of that society s language will highlight it. Take for example the fact that the Eskimo languages have many words for snow, similarly the Americans for cars and the Norwegians for fish. However, as Stafford points out this should not be taken to mean that other cultures cannot perceive the items which are described with specific vocabulary in one culture. We will write a custom essay sample on How Language Affects Perception or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/page In another of Boroditsky s experiments, she wondered whether the presence of object gender (masculine and feminine) in grammar made people from different culture perceive things in different ways. In a study, Germans and Spanish speakers were asked to describe objects that had opposite gender assignments in their respective languages. Boroditsky states that the way in which they described the objects was predicted by the grammatical gender assigned to them.