And so for me, that question was born in that conversation of are there some languages where it's easier to imagine a person without their characteristics of gender filled in? No matter how hard you try to feel happier, you end up back where. You can't touch time. You couldn't have predicted this I know-uh move-uh (ph). This is Hidden Brain. He's a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University and the author of the book "Words On The Move: Why English Won't - And Can't - Sit Still (Like, Literally).". Read the episode transcript. Maybe it's, even less than 100 meters away, but you just can't bring yourself to even throw your, coat on over your pajamas, and put your boots on, and go outside and walk those, hundred meters because somehow it would break the coziness, and it's just too much of, an effort, and you can't be bothered to do it, even though it's such a small thing. That is the most random thing. Many of us rush through our lives, chasing goals and just trying to get everything done. And you've conducted experiments that explore how different conceptions of time in different languages shape the way we think about the world and shape the way we think about stories. Can I get some chicken? BORODITSKY: That's a wonderful question. Stay with us. VEDANTAM: Our conversation made me wonder about what this means on a larger scale. VEDANTAM: So I want to talk about a debate that's raged in your field for many years. They shape our place in it. GEACONE-CRUZ: It's this phrase that describes something between I can't be bothered or I don't want to do it or I recognize the incredible effort that goes into something, even though it shouldn't be so much of an effort. And if you can enjoy it as a parade instead of wondering why people keep walking instead of just sitting on chairs and blowing on their tubas and not moving, then you have more fun. It's natural to want to run away from difficult emotions such as grief, anger and fear. Perspectives on the Situation by Harry T. Reis, and John G. Holmes, in The Oxford Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology, 2012. For example, he might take a bunch of pictures of boys and girls and sort them and say, OK, this is a boy. Lera is a cognitive science professor at the University of California, San Diego. If you're studying a new language, you might discover these phrases not in your textbooks but when you're hanging out with friends. It has to do with the word momentarily. Today in our Happiness 2.0 series, we revisit a favorite episode from 2020. That hadn't started then. Thank you for helping to keep the podcast database up to date. VEDANTAM: Languages orient us to the world. They are ways of seeing the world. Today's episode was the first in our You 2.0 series, which runs all this month. VEDANTAM: (Laughter) All right, I think it might be time for me to confess one of my pet peeves. If you, grew up speaking a language other than English, you probably reach for words in your. to describe the world. So I think it's something that is quite easy for humans to learn if you just have a reason to want to do it. But what I am thinking is, you should realize that even if you don't like it, there's nothing wrong with it in the long run because, for example, Jonathan Swift didn't like it that people were saying kissed instead of kiss-ed (ph) and rebuked instead of rebuk-ed (ph). FDA blocks human trials for Neuralink brain implants. Special thanks to Adam Cole, who wrote and performed our rendition of "The Hokey Pokey." VEDANTAM: The word chair is feminine in Italian. We recommend movies or books to a friend. If I give you a bunch of pictures to lay out and say this is telling you some kind of story and you - and they're disorganized, when an English speaker organizes those pictures, they'll organize them from left to right. In The Air We Breathe : NPR I'm shankar Vedantam in the 2002 rom com. It is the very fabric, the very core of your experience. It's part of a general running indication that everything's OK between you and the other person, just like one's expected to smile a little bit in most interactions. So - but if I understand correctly, I would be completely at sea if I visited this aboriginal community in Australia because I have often absolutely no idea where I am or where I'm going. The only question was in which way. Bu John, you've noted that humans have been using language for a very long time, but for most of that time language has been about talking. If you're bilingual or multilingual, you may have noticed that different languages make you stretch in different ways. When language was like that, of course it changed a lot - fast - because once you said it, it was gone. So you may start with moving your southwest leg in, but then you have to move your northeast leg out. Rightly Crossing the Rubicon: Evaluating Goal Self-Concordance Prior to Selection Helps People Choose More Intrinsic Goals, by Kennon M. Sheldon, Mike Prentice, and Evgeny Osin, Journal of Research in Personality, 2019. Transcript The transcript below may be for an earlier version of this episode. Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Dont Know, by Adam Grant, 2021. Transcript - How language shapes the way we think by Lera Boroditsky.docx, The Singapore Quality Award requires organisations to show outstanding results, The following lots of Commodity Z were available for sale during the year, b The authors identify 5 types of misinformation in the abstract but discuss 7, 17 Chow N Asian value and aged care Geriatr Gerontol Int 20044521 5 18 Chow NWS, Writing Results and Discussion Example.docx, A 6 month old infant weighing 15 lb is admitted with a diagnosis of dehydration, ng_Question_-_Assessment_1_-_Proposing_Evidence-Based_Change.doc, The Social Security checks the Government sends to grandmothers are considered A, 03 If a covered member participates on the clients attest engagement or is an, AURETR143 Student Assessment - Theory v1.1.docx. So for example, if Sam grabbed a hammer and struck the flute in anger, that would be one description, like, Sam broke the flute. See you next week. They shape our place in it. All sponsorship opportunities on Hidden Brain are managed by SXM Media. So what happens is that once literally comes to feel like it means really, people start using it in figurative constructions such as I was literally dying of thirst. Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. This week, we're going to bring you a conversation I had in front of a live audience with Richard Thaler, taped on Halloween at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington, D. Richard is a professor of behavioral sciences and economics at the University of Chicago and is a well-known author. And maybe the convenience store or the shop is really not that far away. Trusted by 5,200 companies and developers. And dead languages never change, and some of us might prefer those. All of the likes and, like, literallies (ph) might sometimes grate on your nerves, but John McWhorter says the problem might be with you, not with the way other people speak. Hidden Brain Feb 23, 2023 Happiness 2.0: Surprising Sources of Joy Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. And all of a sudden, I noticed that there was a new window that had popped up in my mind, and it was like a little bird's-eye view of the landscape that I was walking through, and I was a little red dot that was moving across the landscape. GEACONE-CRUZ: And I ended up living there for 10 years. Researcher Elizabeth Dunn helps us map out the unexpected ways we can find joy and happiness in our everyday lives. : A Data-Driven Prescription to Redefine Professional Success, by Lawrence S. Krieger and Kennon M. Sheldon, George Washington Law Review, 2015. Happiness 2.0: The Only Way Out Is Through. Psychologist Ken Sheldon studies the science of figuring out what you want. Of course, if you can't keep track of exactly seven, you can't count. HIDDEN BRAIN < Lost in Translation: January 29, 20189:00 PM ET VEDANTAM: Well, that's kind of you, Lera. They're supposed to be painting something very personal. And when I listen to people having their peeves, I don't think, stop it. And it's not just about how we think about time. Today in our Happiness 2.0 series, we revisit a favorite episode from 2020. So LOL starts out as meaning hardy-har-har (ph), but then it becomes something more abstract. How come you aren't exactly the way you were 10 years ago? This week, we kick off a month-long series we're calling Happiness 2.0. BORODITSKY: My family is Jewish, and we left as refugees. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking foreign language). And the answer should be, north, northeast in the far distance; how about you? BORODITSKY: Yeah. This week, we continue our look at the science of influence with psychologist Robert Cialdini, and explore how th, We all exert pressure on each other in ways small and profound. There was no such thing as looking up what it originally meant. He didn't like that people were shortening the words. So maybe they're saying bridges are beautiful and elegant, not because they're grammatically feminine in the language, but because the bridges they have are, in fact, more beautiful and elegant. You would give a different description to mark that it was not intentional. How else would you do it? Updated privacy policy: We have made some changes to our Privacy Policy. And if you don't have a word for exactly seven, it actually becomes very, very hard to keep track of exactly seven. But it turns out humans can stay oriented really, really well, provided that their language and culture requires them to keep track of this information. This week, in the second installment of our Happiness 2.0 series, psychologist Todd Kashdan looks at the relationship between distress and happiness, and ho, Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. Newsletter: Go behind the scenes, see what Shankar is reading and find more useful resources and links. And to our surprise, 78 percent of the time, we could predict the gender of the personification based on the grammatical gender of the noun in the artist's native language. Copyright Hidden Brain Media | Privacy Policy. But then you start writing things down and you're in a whole new land because once things are sitting there written on that piece of paper, there's that illusion. VEDANTAM: There are phrases in every language that are deeply evocative and often untranslatable. For example, when we started talking about navigation, that's an example where a 5-year-old in a culture that uses words like north, south, east and west can point southeast without hesitation. But actually, that's exactly how people in those communities come to stay oriented - is that they learn it, (laughter) right? MCWHORTER: Yes, that's exactly true. And we looked at every personification and allegory in Artstor and asked, does the language that you speak matter for how you paint death, depending on whether the word death is masculine or feminine in your language? The Effects of Conflict Types, Dimensions, and Emergent States on Group Outcomes, by Karen Jehn et. If you're studying a new language, you might discover these phrases not. Hidden Brain: You 2.0: Cultivating Your Purpose on Apple Podcasts So they've compared gender equality, gender parity norms from the World Health Organization, which ranks countries on how equal access to education, how equal pay is, how equal representation in government is across the genders. Our transcripts are provided by various partners and may contain errors or deviate slightly from the audio. If you dont see any jobs posted there, feel free to send your resume and cover letter to [emailprotected] and well keep your materials on hand for future openings on the show. Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams, by Amy Edmondson, Administrative Science Quarterly, 1999. Hidden Brain: The NPR Archive : NPR - NPR.org Hidden Brain - You 2.0: Cultivating Your Purpose Hidden Brain Aug 2, 2021 You 2.0: Cultivating Your Purpose Play 51 min playlist_add Having a sense of purpose can be a buffer against the. And maybe the convenience store or the shop is really not that far away. Many of us believe that hard work and persistence are the key to achieving our goals. And you suddenly get a craving for potato chips, and you realize that you have none in the kitchen, and there's nothing else you really want to eat. MCWHORTER: You could have fun doing such a thing. VEDANTAM: If languages are shaped by the way people see the world, but they also shape how people see the world, what does this mean for people who are bilingual? Whats going on here? al, Group Decision and Negotiation, 2008. and pick the featured episodes for your show. How To Breathe Correctly For Optimal Health, Mood, Learning I had this cool experience when I was there. And as odd as that sounds, I can guarantee you if you watch any TV show with women under a certain age or if you just go out on an American street and listen, you'll find that that's a new kind of exclamatory particle. Lera, thank you so much for joining me on HIDDEN BRAIN today. In The Air We Breathe . If you can speak more than one language, does this mean that you're also simultaneously and constantly shifting in your mind between different worldviews? Copyright Hidden Brain Media | Privacy Policy, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Dont Know, Refusing to Apologize can have Psychological Benefits, The Effects of Conflict Types, Dimensions, and Emergent States on Group Outcomes, Social Functionalist Frameworks for Judgment and Choice: Intuitive Politicians, Theologians, and Prosecutors, Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams, The Effective Negotiator Part 1: The Behavior of Successful Negotiators, The Effective Negotiator Part 2: Planning for Negotiations, Read the latest from the Hidden Brain Newsletter. And nobody wishes that we hadn't developed our modern languages today from the ancient versions. VEDANTAM: I understand there's been some work looking at children and that children who speak certain languages are actually quicker to identify gender and their own gender than children who are learning other languages in other cultures. GEACONE-CRUZ: And I ended up living there for 10 years. He says there are things we can do to make sure our choices align with our deepest values. After claiming your Listen Notes podcast pages, you will be able to: Respond to listener comments on Listen Notes, Use speech-to-text techniques to transcribe your show and In a lot of languages, there isn't. Course Hero is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university. So for example, English speakers, because they're very likely to say, he did it or someone did it, they are very good at remembering who did it, even if it's an accident. I'm . How does that sound now? BORODITSKY: So quite literally, to get past hello, you have to know which way you're heading. So that's a measurement difference of 100 percent of performance. But also, I started wondering, is it possible that my friend here was imagining a person without a gender for this whole time that we've been talking about them, right? These relationships can help you feel cared for and connected. If you liked . It's too high. So you have speakers of two different languages look at the same event and come away with different memories of what happened because of the structure of their languages and the way they would normally describe them. But we have plenty of words like that in English where it doesn't bother us at all. So the way you say hi in Kuuk Thaayorre is to say, which way are you heading? UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: (Speaking foreign language). So you might say, there's an ant on your northwest leg. So the question for us has been, how do we build these ideas? Hidden Brain : NPR BORODITSKY: I had this wonderful opportunity to work with my colleague Alice Gaby in this community called Pormpuraaw in - on Cape York. All of these are very subjective things. Each language comprises the ideas that have been worked out in a culture over thousands of generations, and that is an incredible amount of cultural heritage and complexity of thought that disappears whenever a language dies. Sometimes, life can feel like being stuck on a treadmill. What turns out to be the case is that it's something in between - that bilinguals don't really turn off the languages they're not using when they're not using them. Languages are not just tools. That's because change is hard. And it really is an illusion that what language is, is something that sits still. Something new will have started by then, just like if we listen to people in 1971, they sound odd in that they don't say like as much as we do. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #10: (Speaking Russian). We all have to make certain choices in life, such as where to live and how to earn a living. And some people would say it's a lot more because it's, you know, irrecoverable and not reduplicated elsewhere. And if the word bridge is masculine in your language, you're more likely to say that bridges are strong and long and towering - these kind of more stereotypically masculine words. I think that it's better to think of language as a parade that either you're watching, or frankly, that you're in, especially because the people are never going to stand still. There are signs it's getting even harder. The size of this effect really quite surprised me because I would have thought at the outset that, you know, artists are these iconoclasts. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Hidden Brain on RadioPublic And you suddenly get a craving for potato chips, and you, realize that you have none in the kitchen, and there's nothing else you really want to, eat. And I was telling this person about someone I knew back in America. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #11: (Speaking Russian). GEACONE-CRUZ: It describes this feeling so perfectly in such a wonderfully packaged, encapsulated way. Long before she began researching languages as a professor, foreign languages loomed large in her life. This week, in the fourth and final installment of our Happiness 2.0 series, psychologist Dacher Keltner describes . Social Functionalist Frameworks for Judgment and Choice: Intuitive Politicians, Theologians, and Prosecutors, by Philip Tetlock, Psychology Review, 2002. VEDANTAM: I understand that if you're in a picnic with someone from this community and you notice an ant climbing up someone's left leg, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to tell that person, look, there's an ant on your left leg.