In the article, "Through the Language Glass," Alex Bellos shed light on numerous concepts that were foreign to me prior to reading this text. Nevertheless, the content of the article itself was rather illuminating as it covered a range of different perspectives on the perception of colours and how this perception is intertwined with language. For instance, Bellos falsifies the myth that the ancient Greeks were unable to distinguish between varied colours or did not have developed sense of colour as he counters that it was merely the lack of colour-oriented vocabulary that resulted in this misconception to arise.
Bellos then goes on to give specific examples from countries around the world, including Japan and Russia to emphasize the fact that it was not just the Greeks who did not have a colour, more specifically, for blue. I personally found this quite interesting to learn as I have never really focused on the origin of colours of the etymology of colour specific words and hence reading about the emergence of these words was quite fascinating.
One line that really stood out to me in this article was regarding how colours in different language are discovered in a predictable order whereby: "Black and white come first, then red, then yellow, then green and finally blue." Now that I think about it, today we are surrounded by a gazillion different colours, most of which we can name. Nevertheless, it was not necessarily always like this. Perhaps this predictable order explains why old TV shows. movies and printed photographs were initially in black and white as these were the only explicit colours known to be labelled as a colour back then.
Accordingly, the examples provided for the German and Spanish language is one I can genuinely relate to as I have been learning French for a while and am thus well acquainted with the "gender system" for words. In all honesty, I also personally believe it would be much easier for me to remember names given to objects if they correlated with the "gender" of the object in French as this makes establishing connections much easier. Whilst this was a great example, I am not sure of how it really links to Deutcher's conclusion that "speakers of different languages may perceive colours slightly differently after all".
Ultimately, I am in agreement with Bellos claim that one's language does not have that much of an influence on their perception. I personally believe that more than the language one speaks, a contributing factor that greatly influences perception is the culture and values they are brought up with. For example, brought up in an Indian society, I was always taught that teachers are to be held with very high regard and are pivotal figures in our lives. Thus, whilst I often see fellow classmates sometimes answer back or perhaps being disrespectful to a teacher, it is something I do not agree with for that is how I have been brought up. Thus, to me, the perception of something as little as wrong and right in varied situations seems to be greatly influenced by one's upbringing as opposed to the language they speak.
1st order claims:
- We can see something for which we have no word
- None of the ancient language had a proper word for blue
- Colour words emerge in all languages in a predictable order: Black and white come first, then red, then yellow, then green and finally blue.
- Language barely has an effect on perception
2nd order claims
- Can perception of varied aspects of the word truly be influenced by one's linguistic acquisitions?
- Are bi/multilingual individuals subject to having two different perspective on a single observation due to the fact that they can speak more than one language?
- Were the Greeks, who barely had a colour-oriented vocabulary, actually unable to distinguish between varied colours?
- Do artists, due to their constant exposure to many colours, have a better sense of distinction in regards to shades of colours?
1)What have you learnt in the last two sessions about language? what came to your mind that you have not shared with the class?
In the last two lessons we have spoken primarily about language in relation to perception. All in all, I have learnt that language itself is much more than simply a means of communication; language is equivalent to an identity. Depending on the regions we come from, or have lived in, we are exposed to a multitude of languages and these have evolved over several generations. In fact, we explored so many different facets of language that I had never even thought about before (on which I have reflected in depth in the specific blogposts for that class). The stroop test is a good example that has over the years quantified the claim that bi/multilingual individuals process fluctuation in minute details much faster than those who are monolingual due to their practice of "code-switching."The activity that demanded us to make our own language essentially taught me how it is not vital for merely the definition of words to be known, but also the fact that several other factors, including expressions, gestures and body language play a critical role in getting across a point in any given language. From a more scientific point of view, we looked at how multilinguals may have greater brain elasticity due to their ability to acquire many languages.
I myself am very keen on the acquisition of varied languages. I personally believe learning multiple languages opens many windows to the world as those you can communicate with on a different level have increased in numbers. As mentioned in class, at the moment I am very much into Korean and hence have been practicing my Korean skills. Nevertheless, what I have learnt over time along with my acquisition of languages is that it is extremely difficult to learn a language unless you are constantly surrounded by people fluent in it. Thus, despite the fact that I have been learning the basis of Korean for the past couple of months, I am sure that spending just a week in Korea itself, submerged in that atmosphere would be a much more effective way of acquiring and implementing concepts.
2) How important is body language across cultures? Do we think differently when we speak more than one language?
I think body language is something very distinct across different cultures. For example, in the Indian culture, subtly bowing down to greet with folded hands is quite common. Nevertheless, if contrasted to the Korean whereby individuals fully bow down, the body gesture would be received oddly if swapped in the different contexts. Accordingly, being a multilingual, I can say at least on my behalf that my thought process does not differ whilst switching from one language to another. Nevertheless, more than thinking differently, I think often it is a different side of one's personality that emerges depending on the language they are conversing in and how they desire to portray themselves.
3)How reliable is language?? Explore these aspects: (lost in translation, misunderstandings, legitimacy of language, language used in marketing, media, bias...)
I believe that language itself is not reliable due to the fact that language can cleverly be moulded or in some cases distorted to deliver an ambiguous message. Marketing and media is a great example as evidence to this as these are fields especially where language is cleverly manipulated to attract buyers/buyers. For instance, as we were studying in our biology lessons, food products often have labels like "trans-fat free" or "cholesterol free," to appeal to health conscious people. Now, we learnt that cholesterol is only founded in animal cells, hence, it is ipso facto impossible for potato chips to have cholesterol in the first place. However, due to the fact that cholesterol is connoted with unhealthy, simply plastering the fact that a product is free of this molecule tricks buyers into picking it up. Therefore, language can be cunningly manipulated in contexts to reap benefits.
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