Symbolic Systems Forum - Lera Boroditsky, Psychology Department, "Relationships Between Language and Thought"

Lera Boroditsky, Psychology Department, "Relationships Between Language and Thought"

Abstract: Do people who speak different languages think differently about

the world? Does learning new languages change the way you think? Do

polyglots think differently when speaking different languages? I will

present several lines of cross-linguistic experiments illustrating how the

languages we speak shape the way we attend to, represent, and remember our

experiences in the world. The results suggest that the private mental lives

of people who speak different languages differ much more than previously

thought.

BIO: Lera Boroditsky earned a BA with Honors in Cognitive Science from

Northwestern University in 1996 and a Ph.D in Cognitive Psychology from

Stanford University in 2001. After receiving her doctorate, Boroditsky

spent several years as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Brain &

Cognitive Sciences at MIT.

Boroditsky's main interests have concerned acquisition of language and

meaning, metaphoric structuring, conceptual development and change, and

cross-linguistic similarities and differences in thought. Her research has

particularly addressed the ongoing debate in the field concerning

linguistic relativity: the hypothesis that the langauges we speak may shape

the way we think.