Language and Culture: Lost in Translation? the world to suit changing goals and environments.” Each language presents a way of organizing the world and making meaning of it, a collection of knowledge that has developed over thousands of years within a given culture. So, as we begin to understand the process of language, from the Tower of Babel to the present, we also gain new insight into how we’ve become who we are. We now know there is a relationship between thought and language, but the really interesting question is, “Which way does it go?” Recent studies suggest that if we change language, we change the way we think, as well. Here’s the really neat part: the work of Boaz Keysar at the University of Chicago suggests that when we speak a foreign language, it “provides a distancing mechanism that moves people from the immediate intuitive system to a more deliberate mode of thinking,” which is to say that speaking a foreign language increases our risk-taking and judgment abilities, because it reduces emotional input for the decisions. Hence the excitement and liberation we find when we persist in our study and gain fluency in another language. 61 Here’s to study abroad! Sources: Thanks to Lera Boroditsky’s Wall Street Journal article, an earlier version of her Scientific American article, for the recommendation of Brueghel’s The Tower of Babel (Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2010). See her interview, April 26, 2011, at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/ bigideas/stories/2011/04/26/3200654.htm (February 4, 2014); Lera Boroditsky, “How Language Shapes Thought: The Languages We Speak Affect Our Perceptions of the World,” Scientific American, February 2011, pp. 63–65; “Foreign Language Thoughts Boost Risk- Taking,” Futurity, University of Chicago, http://www.futurity.org/society culture/foreign-language-thoughts-boost-risk-taking/ ( February 4, 2014). New research in cognitive psychology has revealed a strong connection between language and thinking. “Of course,” you might say, “we use language to think.” And in fact the idea that words shape our thinking is not new, though it was abandoned for a time. Today, thanks to cognitive psychologists such as Lera Boroditsky and her colleagues at Stanford, it is receiving new attention and acceptance. Boroditsky and her colleagues explore whether our understanding of the basic phenomena we experience, like time, space, and causal relationships, is related to language. For instance, in Pormpuraaw, a remote Australian Aboriginal community, directions are conceptualized in terms of north, south, east, and west. There is no left and right. Not surprisingly, the people of Pormpuraaw have well-developed spatial orientation, can tell which compass direction they are facing at any time, and have solid navigational skills. The Piraha, a Brazilian Amazon tribe, don’t count with numbers; they use words like “few” and “many” and don’t keep track of exact quantities. Then there are Japanese speakers, who use different words for counting based on the shape of the things they are counting. Russians have more words for shades of blue than English speakers and can discriminate among them more precisely. Do words shape people’s experience in each of these examples? Boroditsky points out that each of the world’s more than 7,000 languages—many of which have not yet been studied—reflects the adaptability of our human intelligence, its “ability to invent and rearrange conceptions of Cultural differences are an interesting topic for study on their own, and in business their study presents an opportunity to gain a strategic advantage. The first “ To HAVE ANOTHER LANGUAGE IS to HAVE ANOTHER SOUL. —Charlemagne ” step in getting to this strategic advantage is to understand a basic concept: that our way is not the only way or even the best way. This reality sounds simple, but it is often difficult for us to grasp and internalize when we most need to, when we are interacting with people from other cultures. Mishandling or ignoring cultural differences can lead to many business problems, such as lost sales, the departure of competent employees, and low morale that contributes to low productivity. When we adjust to cultural differences, when they are harmonized or blended successfully, they can result in powerful, innovative business practices superior to those that one culture could produce by itself. The whole can be greater than its parts! What Is Culture and Why Is It Important? There are many definitions of culture, and we’ll share several of them that we find useful. The definitional differences depend mostly on the scientists’ approach to the field, their level of analysis, whether they are looking at whole populations as groups or the LO 3-1 Describe what culture is.
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