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Abstract
Does the language you speak affect how you think about the world? This question is
taken up in three experiments. English and Mandarin talk about time differently--English
predominantly talks about time as if it were horizontal, while Mandarin also commonly
describes time as vertical. This difference between the two languages is reflected
in the way their speakers think about time. In one study, Mandarin speakers tended
to think about time vertically even when they were thinking for English (Mandarin
speakers were faster to confirm that March comes earlier than April if they had just
seen a vertical array of objects than if they had just seen a horizontal array, and
the reverse was true for English speakers). Another study showed that the extent to
which Mandarin-English bilinguals think about time vertically is related to how old
they were when they first began to learn English. In another experiment native English
speakers were taught to talk about time using vertical spatial terms in a way similar
to Mandarin. On a subsequent test, this group of English speakers showed the same
bias to think about time vertically as was observed with Mandarin speakers. It is
concluded that (1) language is a powerful tool in shaping thought about abstract domains
and (2) one's native language plays an important role in shaping habitual thought
(e.g., how one tends to think about time) but does not entirely determine one's thinking
in the strong Whorfian sense.
Copyright 2001 Academic Press.