Lera Boroditsky

About the Speaker

Lera Boroditsky is a cognitive scientist and professor in the field of language and cognition. She is one of the main contributors to the theory of linguistic relativity (also known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis).

莉拉·博罗迪茨基是一位认知科学家，也是语言与认知领域的教授。她是语言相对论（也称萨丕尔-沃尔夫假说）理论的主要贡献者之一。

Introduction: The Magic of Language

So, I'll be speaking to you using language ... because I can. This is one of these magical abilities that we humans have. We can transmit really complicated thoughts to one another. So what I'm doing right now is, I'm making sounds with my mouth as I'm exhaling. I'm making tones and hisses and puffs, and those are creating air vibrations in the air. Those air vibrations are traveling to you, they're hitting your eardrums, and then your brain takes those vibrations from your eardrums and transforms them into thoughts. I hope. (Laughter) I hope that's happening.

那么，我将用语言和大家交流……因为我能做到。这是我们人类拥有的神奇能力之一。我们能够将非常复杂的思想传递给彼此。我现在正在做的，就是一边呼气，一边用嘴发出声音。我发出声调、嘶嘶声和噗噗声，这些声音在空气中产生振动。这些空气振动传播到你们那里，撞击你们的耳膜，然后你们的大脑接收这些来自耳膜的振动，并将它们转化为思想。我希望如此。(笑声) 我希望这一切正在发生。

So because of this ability, we humans are able to transmit our ideas across vast reaches of space and time. We're able to transmit knowledge across minds. I can put a bizarre new idea in your mind right now. I could say, "Imagine a jellyfish waltzing in a library while thinking about quantum mechanics." (Laughter) Now, if everything has gone relatively well in your life so far, you probably haven't had that thought before. (Laughter) But now I've just made you think it, through language.

正因为拥有这种能力，我们人类能够跨越广阔的空间和时间传递思想。我们能够跨越不同的大脑传递知识。我现在就可以在你们的脑海中植入一个奇异的新想法。比如我说：“想象一只水母在图书馆里一边跳着华尔兹，一边思考量子力学。” (笑声) 如果你至今为止生活还算顺利，你可能以前从未有过这样的想法。(笑声) 但现在，通过语言，我刚刚让你们想到了它。

Now of course, there isn't just one language in the world, there are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world. And all the languages differ from one another in all kinds of ways. Some languages have different sounds, they have different vocabularies, and they also have different structures -- very importantly, different structures. That begs the question: Does the language we speak shape the way we think?

当然，世界上并非只有一种语言，全球大约有7000种语言在使用。所有这些语言在各个方面都互不相同。有些语言有不同的发音，它们有不同的词汇量，而且它们还有不同的结构——非常重要的是，不同的结构。这就引出了一个问题：我们所说的语言是否会塑造我们的思维方式？

Now, this is an ancient question. People have been speculating about this question forever. Charlemagne, Holy Roman emperor, said, "To have a second language is to have a second soul" -- strong statement that language crafts reality. But on the other hand, Shakespeare has Juliet say, "What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Well, that suggests that maybe language doesn't craft reality.

这是一个古老的问题。人们一直在推测这个问题。神圣罗马帝国皇帝查理曼曾说：“掌握第二门语言，就是拥有第二个灵魂”——这有力地表明语言塑造现实。但另一方面，莎士比亚让朱丽叶说：“名字代表什么？玫瑰即使换了名字，闻起来依然芬芳。” 这似乎表明，语言可能并不塑造现实。

These arguments have gone back and forth for thousands of years. But until recently, there hasn't been any data to help us decide either way. Recently, in my lab and other labs around the world, we've started doing research, and now we have actual scientific data to weigh in on this question.

这些争论已经持续了数千年。但直到最近，我们都没有任何数据来帮助我们做出判断。最近，在我的实验室和世界各地的其他实验室，我们已经开始进行研究，现在我们有了实际的科学数据来探讨这个问题。

Examples of Linguistic Influence

Space and Orientation: The Kuuk Thaayorre

So let me tell you about some of my favorite examples. I'll start with an example from an Aboriginal community in Australia that I had the chance to work with. These are the Kuuk Thaayorre people. They live in Pormpuraaw at the very west edge of Cape York. What's cool about Kuuk Thaayorre is, in Kuuk Thaayorre, they don't use words like "left" and "right," and instead, everything is in cardinal directions: north, south, east and west. And when I say everything, I really mean everything. You would say something like, "Oh, there's an ant on your southwest leg." Or, "Move your cup to the north-northeast a little bit." In fact, the way that you say "hello" in Kuuk Thaayorre is you say, "Which way are you going?" And the answer should be, "North-northeast in the far distance. How about you?"

让我给你们讲一些我最喜欢的例子。我将从一个我有机会合作的澳大利亚原住民社区的例子开始。他们是库克·塔亚奥雷人（Kuuk Thaayorre）。他们住在约克角最西端的波姆普拉。库克·塔亚奥雷语的酷之处在于，他们不使用像“左”和“右”这样的词，而是用基本方位来表达一切：东、南、西、北。当我说一切时，我指的是所有的一切。你会说类似这样的话：“哦，你的西南方向的腿上有一只蚂蚁。”或者，“把你的杯子向东北偏北方向移动一点。”事实上，在库克·塔亚奥雷语中，打招呼的方式是问：“你往哪个方向走？”回答应该是：“遥远的东北偏北方向。你呢？”

So imagine as you're walking around your day, every person you greet, you have to report your heading direction. (Laughter) But that would actually get you oriented pretty fast, right? Because you literally couldn't get past "hello," if you didn't know which way you were going. In fact, people who speak languages like this stay oriented really well. They stay oriented better than we used to think humans could. We used to think that humans were worse than other creatures because of some biological excuse: "Oh, we don't have magnets in our beaks or in our scales." No; if your language and your culture trains you to do it, actually, you can do it. There are humans around the world who stay oriented really well.

所以，想象一下，在你日常行走时，每次和人打招呼，你都必须报告你前进的方向。(笑声) 但这实际上会让你很快确定方向，对吧？因为如果你不知道自己要去哪个方向，你甚至连“你好”都说不出口。事实上，说这类语言的人方向感非常好。他们的方向感比我们过去认为的人类所能达到的要好。我们过去认为人类在这方面不如其他生物，并为此找了些生物学上的借口：“哦，我们的喙或鳞片里没有磁铁。”不，如果你的语言和文化训练你这样做，你实际上是可以做到的。世界上有些人的方向感非常好。

And just to get us in agreement about how different this is from the way we do it, I want you all to close your eyes for a second and point southeast. (Laughter) Keep your eyes closed. Point. OK, so you can open your eyes. I see you guys pointing there, there, there, there, there ... I don't know which way it is myself -- (Laughter) You have not been a lot of help. (Laughter) So let's just say the accuracy in this room was not very high. This is a big difference in cognitive ability across languages, right? Where one group -- very distinguished group like you guys -- doesn't know which way is which, but in another group, I could ask a five-year-old and they would know. (Laughter)

为了让我们就此与我们做法的差异达成共识，我想请大家闭上眼睛一会儿，然后指向东南方。(笑声) 保持眼睛闭着。指。好了，你们可以睁开眼睛了。我看到你们指向那边、那边、那边、那边、那边……我自己也不知道是哪个方向——(笑声) 你们没帮上什么忙。(笑声) 所以，可以说这个房间里的准确度不是很高。这是不同语言在认知能力上的巨大差异，对吧？其中一个群体——像你们这样非常杰出的群体——不知道哪个方向是哪个方向，但在另一个群体中，我可以问一个五岁的孩子，他们就会知道。(笑声)

Time Perception

There are also really big differences in how people think about time. So here I have pictures of my grandfather at different ages. And if I ask an English speaker to organize time, they might lay it out this way, from left to right. This has to do with writing direction. If you were a speaker of Hebrew or Arabic, you might do it going in the opposite direction, from right to left. But how would the Kuuk Thaayorre, this Aboriginal group I just told you about, do it? They don't use words like "left" and "right." Let me give you hint. When we sat people facing south, they organized time from left to right. When we sat them facing north, they organized time from right to left. When we sat them facing east, time came towards the body. What's the pattern? East to west, right? So for them, time doesn't actually get locked on the body at all, it gets locked on the landscape.

人们对时间的思考方式也存在巨大差异。这里我有我祖父不同年龄段的照片。如果我让一个说英语的人来组织时间，他们可能会这样排列，从左到右。这与书写方向有关。如果你说希伯来语或阿拉伯语，你可能会反方向排列，从右到左。但我刚才提到的那个原住民群体库克·塔亚奥雷人会怎么做呢？他们不使用“左”和“右”这样的词。让我给你们一个提示。当我们让人们面朝南坐时，他们从左到右组织时间。当我们让他们面朝北坐时，他们从右到左组织时间。当我们让他们面朝东坐时，时间是朝向身体的。这是什么规律？从东到西，对吧？所以对他们来说，时间根本不是锁定在身体上的，而是锁定在景观上的。

So for me, if I'm facing this way, then time goes this way, and if I'm facing this way, then time goes this way. I'm facing this way, time goes this way -- very egocentric of me to have the direction of time chase me around every time I turn my body. For the Kuuk Thaayorre, time is locked on the landscape. It's a dramatically different way of thinking about time.

所以对我来说，如果我面朝这个方向，时间就往这边流逝；如果我面朝那个方向，时间就往那边流逝。我面朝这边，时间就往这边走——每次我转身，时间的方向都跟着我变，这真是非常以自我为中心。对于库克·塔亚奥雷人来说，时间是锁定在景观上的。这是一种截然不同的思考时间的方式。

Numbers and Counting

Here's another really smart human trick. Suppose I ask you how many penguins are there. Well, I bet I know how you'd solve that problem if you solved it. You went, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight." You counted them. You named each one with a number, and the last number you said was the number of penguins. This is a little trick that you're taught to use as kids. You learn the number list and you learn how to apply it. A little linguistic trick. Well, some languages don't do this, because some languages don't have exact number words. They're languages that don't have a word like "seven" or a word like "eight." In fact, people who speak these languages don't count, and they have trouble keeping track of exact quantities. So, for example, if I ask you to match this number of penguins to the same number of ducks, you would be able to do that by counting. But folks who don't have that linguistic trick can't do that.

这里还有另一个非常聪明的人类技巧。假设我问你这里有多少只企鹅。我敢打赌，我知道你会怎么解决这个问题。你会数：“一、二、三、四、五、六、七、八。”你数了它们。你用一个数字命名每一只，你说的最后一个数字就是企鹅的数量。这是你小时候学到的一个小技巧。你学习数字列表，并学习如何应用它。一个小小的语言技巧。然而，有些语言不这样做，因为有些语言没有精确的数字词。这些语言没有像“七”或“八”这样的词。事实上，说这些语言的人不计数，他们很难追踪确切的数量。例如，如果我让你将这些企鹅的数量与相同数量的鸭子匹配起来，你可以通过计数来做到。但那些没有这种语言技巧的人做不到。

Color Perception

Languages also differ in how they divide up the color spectrum -- the visual world. Some languages have lots of words for colors, some have only a couple words, "light" and "dark." And languages differ in where they put boundaries between colors. So, for example, in English, there's a word for blue that covers all of the colors that you can see on the screen, but in Russian, there isn't a single word. Instead, Russian speakers have to differentiate between light blue, "goluboy," and dark blue, "siniy." So Russians have this lifetime of experience of, in language, distinguishing these two colors. When we test people's ability to perceptually discriminate these colors, what we find is that Russian speakers are faster across this linguistic boundary. They're faster to be able to tell the difference between a light and dark blue. And when you look at people's brains as they're looking at colors -- say you have colors shifting slowly from light to dark blue -- the brains of people who use different words for light and dark blue will give a surprised reaction as the colors shift from light to dark, as if, "Ooh, something has categorically changed," whereas the brains of English speakers, for example, that don't make this categorical distinction, don't give that surprise, because nothing is categorically changing.

语言在划分色谱——视觉世界的方式上也各不相同。有些语言有很多表示颜色的词，有些只有几个词，比如“亮”和“暗”。语言在颜色之间的界限划分上也不同。例如，在英语中，有一个词“blue”，涵盖了你在屏幕上能看到的所有蓝色，但在俄语中，没有这样一个单一的词。相反，说俄语的人必须区分浅蓝色“goluboy”和深蓝色“siniy”。因此，俄罗斯人在语言中一生都在区分这两种颜色。当我们测试人们感知辨别这些颜色的能力时，我们发现说俄语的人在跨越这个语言界限时速度更快。他们能更快地区分浅蓝色和深蓝色。当你观察人们看颜色时的大脑活动——比如颜色从浅蓝缓慢过渡到深蓝——使用不同词语表示浅蓝和深蓝的人，当颜色从浅变深时，他们的大脑会产生惊讶的反应，就好像“哦，某种东西发生了类别上的变化”，而说英语的人的大脑，例如，不做这种类别区分，则不会产生这种惊讶，因为没有发生类别上的变化。

Grammatical Gender

Languages have all kinds of structural quirks. This is one of my favorites. Lots of languages have grammatical gender; every noun gets assigned a gender, often masculine or feminine. And these genders differ across languages. So, for example, the sun is feminine in German but masculine in Spanish, and the moon, the reverse. Could this actually have any consequence for how people think? Do German speakers think of the sun as somehow more female-like, and the moon somehow more male-like? Actually, it turns out that's the case. So if you ask German and Spanish speakers to, say, describe a bridge, like the one here -- "bridge" happens to be grammatically feminine in German, grammatically masculine in Spanish -- German speakers are more likely to say bridges are "beautiful," "elegant" and stereotypically feminine words. Whereas Spanish speakers will be more likely to say they're "strong" or "long," these masculine words. (Laughter)

语言有各种各样的结构特性。这是我最喜欢的之一。许多语言都有语法性别；每个名词都被赋予一个性别，通常是阳性或阴性。这些性别在不同语言中是不同的。例如，太阳在德语中是阴性，但在西班牙语中是阳性，而月亮则相反。这真的会对人们的思维方式产生任何影响吗？说德语的人会认为太阳更像女性，月亮更像男性吗？事实上，情况确实如此。如果你让说德语和西班牙语的人描述一座桥，比如这里的这座桥——“桥”这个词在德语中碰巧是阴性，在西班牙语中是阳性——说德语的人更可能说桥是“美丽的”、“优雅的”这些典型的女性化词语。而说西班牙语的人则更可能说桥是“坚固的”或“长的”，这些阳性词语。(笑声)

Describing Events and Agency

Languages also differ in how they describe events, right? You take an event like this, an accident. In English, it's fine to say, "He broke the vase." In a language like Spanish, you might be more likely to say,"The vase broke," or, "The vase broke itself." If it's an accident, you wouldn't say that someone did it. In English, quite weirdly, we can even say things like, "I broke my arm." Now, in lots of languages, you couldn't use that construction unless you are a lunatic and you went out looking to break your arm -- (Laughter) and you succeeded. If it was an accident, you would use a different construction.

语言在描述事件的方式上也存在差异，对吧？以一个事件为例，比如一次意外。在英语中，说“He broke the vase”（他打破了花瓶）是完全可以的。在像西班牙语这样的语言中，你可能更倾向于说“The vase broke”（花瓶破了），或者“The vase broke itself”（花瓶自己破了）。如果是意外，你不会说某人做了这件事。在英语中，很奇怪的是，我们甚至可以说“I broke my arm”（我摔断了我的胳膊）。然而，在许多语言中，你不能使用这种结构，除非你是个疯子，特意去摔断自己的胳膊——(笑声)并且成功了。如果是意外，你会使用不同的表达方式。

Now, this has consequences. So, people who speak different languages will pay attention to different things, depending on what their language usually requires them to do. So we show the same accident to English speakers and Spanish speakers, English speakers will remember who did it, because English requires you to say, "He did it; he broke the vase." Whereas Spanish speakers might be less likely to remember who did it if it's an accident, but they're more likely to remember that it was an accident. They're more likely to remember the intention. So, two people watch the same event, witness the same crime, but end up remembering different things about that event. This has implications, of course, for eyewitness testimony. It also has implications for blame and punishment. So if you take English speakers and I just show you someone breaking a vase, and I say, "He broke the vase," as opposed to "The vase broke," even though you can witness it yourself, you can watch the video, you can watch the crime against the vase, you will punish someone more, you will blame someone more if I just said, "He broke it," as opposed to, "It broke." The language guides our reasoning about events.

这会产生后果。所以，说不同语言的人会关注不同的事物，这取决于他们的语言通常要求他们做什么。因此，我们向说英语的人和说西班牙语的人展示同一起事故，说英语的人会记住是谁干的，因为英语要求你说：“他干的；他打破了花瓶。”而说西班牙语的人如果这是场意外，可能不太会记住是谁干的，但他们更可能记住这是一场意外。他们更可能记住意图。所以，两个人观看同一事件，目睹同一罪行，但最终记住的关于该事件的事情却不同。这当然对目击者证词有影响。它也对指责和惩罚有影响。所以，如果你让说英语的人看一个人打破花瓶，然后我说“他打破了花瓶”，而不是“花瓶破了”，即使你自己目睹了，你可以看视频，你可以观看针对花瓶的“罪行”，但如果我只说“他打破了它”，而不是“它破了”，你会更多地惩罚某人，更多地指责某人。语言引导我们对事件的推理。

The Profound and Varied Effects of Language

Now, I've given you a few examples of how language can profoundly shape the way we think, and it does so in a variety of ways. So language can have big effects, like we saw with space and time, where people can lay out space and time in completely different coordinate frames from each other. Language can also have really deep effects -- that's what we saw with the case of number. Having count words in your language, having number words, opens up the whole world of mathematics. Of course, if you don't count, you can't do algebra, you can't do any of the things that would be required to build a room like this or make this broadcast, right? This little trick of number words gives you a stepping stone into a whole cognitive realm.

现在，我举了几个例子，说明语言如何深刻地塑造我们的思维方式，而且它以多种方式做到这一点。语言可以产生巨大的影响，就像我们看到的空间和时间那样，人们可以用完全不同的坐标系来组织空间和时间。语言也可以产生非常深远的影响——这就是我们在数字例子中看到的。在你的语言中拥有计数词，拥有数字词，开启了整个数学世界。当然，如果你不计数，你无法进行代数运算，你无法做任何建造这样一个房间或进行这次广播所需要的事情，对吧？数字词这个小技巧为你进入一个全新的认知领域提供了垫脚石。

Language can also have really early effects, what we saw in the case of color. These are really simple, basic, perceptual decisions. We make thousands of them all the time, and yet, language is getting in there and fussing even with these tiny little perceptual decisions that we make. Language can have really broad effects. So the case of grammatical gender may be a little silly, but at the same time, grammatical gender applies to all nouns. That means language can shape how you're thinking about anything that can be named by a noun. That's a lot of stuff.

语言也可能产生非常早期的影响，就像我们在颜色例子中看到的那样。这些都是非常简单、基本的感知决策。我们无时无刻不在做成千上万这样的决策，然而，语言却介入其中，甚至干扰我们做出的这些微小的感知决策。语言可以产生非常广泛的影响。语法性别的例子可能有点傻，但同时，语法性别适用于所有名词。这意味着语言可以塑造你对任何可以用名词命名的东西的思考方式。那可就多了。

And finally, I gave you an example of how language can shape things that have personal weight to us -- ideas like blame and punishment or eyewitness memory. These are important things in our daily lives.

最后，我给你们举了一个例子，说明语言如何塑造对我们具有个人重要性的事物——比如指责和惩罚，或者目击者记忆。这些都是我们日常生活中的重要事情。

Linguistic Diversity and the Human Mind

Now, the beauty of linguistic diversity is that it reveals to us just how ingenious and how flexible the human mind is. Human minds have invented not one cognitive universe, but 7,000 -- there are 7,000 languages spoken around the world. And we can create many more -- languages, of course, are living things, things that we can hone and change to suit our needs. The tragic thing is that we're losing so much of this linguistic diversity all the time. We're losing about one language a week, and by some estimates, half of the world's languages will be gone in the next hundred years.

语言多样性的美妙之处在于，它向我们揭示了人类思维是多么富有创造力和灵活性。人类思维不仅仅创造了一个认知宇宙，而是7000个——全世界大约有7000种语言在使用。而且我们还可以创造更多——语言当然是活生生的东西，我们可以根据需要打磨和改变它们。可悲的是，我们一直在失去大量的语言多样性。我们大约每周失去一种语言，据估计，未来一百年内，世界上一半的语言将会消失。

And the even worse news is that right now, almost everything we know about the human mind and human brain is based on studies of usually American English-speaking undergraduates at universities. That excludes almost all humans. Right? So what we know about the human mind is actually incredibly narrow and biased, and our science has to do better.

更糟糕的消息是，目前我们对人类心智和大脑的几乎所有了解，都基于对通常是美国大学里说英语的本科生的研究。这排除了几乎所有的人类，对吗？所以我们对人类心智的了解实际上是极其狭隘和片面的，我们的科学必须做得更好。

Conclusion: Reflecting on Our Own Thoughts

I want to leave you with this final thought. I've told you about how speakers of different languages think differently, but of course, that's not about how people elsewhere think. It's about how you think. It's how the language that you speak shapes the way that you think. And that gives you the opportunity to ask, "Why do I think the way that I do?" "How could I think differently?" And also, "What thoughts do I wish to create?"

我想留给大家最后一个思考。我告诉了你们不同语言的使用者思维方式有何不同，但这当然不仅仅是关于其他地方的人如何思考。这是关于你如何思考。是你所说的语言如何塑造了你的思维方式。这给了你一个机会去问：“我为什么会这样思考？”“我怎样才能以不同的方式思考？”以及，“我希望创造什么样的思想？”

Thank you very much. (Applause)

非常感谢。(掌声)