小綠的文字世界 / Green's Words

【TED影片-04】筆記與反思

 

Lera Boroditsky《雷拉·波洛狄特斯基》

How language shapes the way we think

語言如何形塑出我們的思考方式

 

<演講重點筆記>

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.

世界上的語言不只一種， 全世界人類說的語言就有約七千種。 每種語言在各面向上都不同。 有些語言有不同的聲音， 它們有不同的字彙， 它們還有不同的結構── 非常重要，不同的結構。

 

【案例1】 庫克薩優里族 (語言與方向感)

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.

庫克薩優里族，住在波姆浦洛，那是約克角半島的西部邊緣。庫克薩優里族很酷的一點是， 在庫克薩優里語中，他們 不用「左」、「右」這些字， 一切都是用基本的方向： 北、南、東、西。 

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?"

在庫克薩優里語中， 說「哈囉」的方式是： 「你要去哪個方向？」 而回應應該是： 「北北東的遠方。 你呢？」

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.

如果你的語言 和你的文化訓練你去做， 你其實能辦到。世界上有些人類的方向感非常好。

 

【案例2】 對時間的思考方式 (how people think about time)

pictures of somebody at different ages, organize time.

依據時間排列某人(講者提供為祖父照片)不同時期的照片。

if I ask an English speaker to, they might lay it out this way, from left to right. This has to do with writing direction

說英語人士：由左到右排列，和書寫方式有關。

If you were a speaker of Hebrew or Arabic, you might do it going in the opposite direction, from right to left.

說希伯來語或阿拉伯與人士：由右到左排列。

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.

So for them, time doesn't actually get locked on the body at all, it gets locked on the landscape.

但庫克薩優里族，我剛剛和各位說的原住民族群，會怎麼做？他們沒有「左」和「右」這些字。 讓我提示各位。當我們讓他們面向南方時，他們會把時間從左向右排。 當我們讓他們面向北方時， 他們會把時間從右向左排。

對他們而言， 時間完全不會被身體限制住，時間是和地景綁在一起的。

 

【案例3】 視覺世界 (the visual world)

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, 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.

不同語言有不同的顏色界線。 比如，在英文中就有藍色的世界，但在俄語中，就沒有單一個字。 說俄語的人，得要去區別淺藍色「goluboy」，和深藍色「siniy」。 所以俄國人一生當中都會在語言上 把這兩種顏色區別開來。

 

【案例4】 語言的性別 (gender of language)

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.

許多語言在文法上都有性別； 每個名詞都有被指派一種性別， 通常是男性或女性。 在不同語言，這些性別也不同。 比如，在德文，太陽是女性， 但在西班牙文則是男性， 月亮剛好相反。 這有沒有可能影響人的思考方式？ 說德文的人是否會用比較女性的方式來想太陽？ 比較男性的方式來想月亮？ 結果發現，的確是如此。 比如，如果你請說德文的人和說西班牙文的人描述一座橋，就像這裡的橋── 「橋」在德文文法中要用女性，在西班牙文則要用男性── 說德文的人在形容橋時比較會用「漂亮的」、「優雅的」，或其他刻板印象上是形容女性的字。 而說西班牙文的人比較有可能會說 橋很「堅固」或「長」， 這些是男性用字。

 

【案例5】 語言會引導我們對於事件的推理 (The language guides our reasoning about events.)

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.

一個意外， 在英文，可以說「他打破了花瓶。」 在比如西班牙文， 你比較有可能會說「花瓶破了」， 或「花瓶自己破了」。 如果它是個意外， 就不會說是有人做的。 在英文，挺奇怪的， 我們甚至會說像這樣的話： 「我弄斷了我的手臂。」

 

【總結】

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. 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.

語言多樣性之美在於它能向我們揭示人類心智是多麼巧妙和有彈性。 人類心智發明出了不只一個認知宇宙，而是七千個── 全世界的語言有七千種。 我們還能創造更多── 當然，語言是活的，我們可以去磨它、改變它，來符合我們的需求。 可惜之處在於，我們在不斷失去語言的多樣性，我們大約一週會失去一種語言， 依據一些估計，在接下來的一百年，世界上的語言有一半會不見。 更糟的消息是，現在，幾乎所有我們對於人類心智和人類大腦的知識都是來自於針對說英文的美國大學生所做的研究。 那就幾乎排除了所有人類，對吧？ 所以我們對於人類心智的了解， 其實是非常狹隘且有偏見的，我們的科學得要做得更好才行。

 

<講者留給聽者的功課>

• Why do I think the way that I do? 我為何會用我這種方式思考？
• How could I think differently? 我要如何用不同方式思考？
• What thoughts do I wish to create? 我想要創造出怎樣的想法？

 

<反思>

• 思考講者提出的功課。
  • 我的語言裡沒有強烈地東西南北概念，我看的圖總是暈頭轉向，我認為庫克薩優里族的生活模式很有趣，或許我也可以來練習怎麼判斷正確方位，並養成習慣。(趕快下載指北針app)
  • 排列圖片年代：習慣由右到左，和書寫習慣有關。用方位來運作，真心覺得有難度，還是先學會判定方位再說。
  • 對於顏色描述，我會說「藍色」，只有需要明確表達時，才會講「深藍色」、「淺藍色」、「踢芬妮藍」之類。顏色是個創造語言和增加創意的好工具，練習看一下上班路上有哪些「藍色」的東西，哪天也會不自覺講出「火焰藍」、「蝴蝶藍」之類的。
  • 看到一個人往後退，撞到花瓶(意外)，我會說：他撞到花瓶了。中文式的表達法，很習慣把人物擺在重點，這也導致我們常常錯把懲罰或錯誤直接扣在某人身上，例如：你又考差了(但個人認為比較好的表達觀點是：這次的成績不好。)、都是你的錯(誰對誰錯很重要嗎？重點應該是事情如何解決吧。)
  • 練習用不同角度思考：這花很美→這花很帥氣。(why not ^^)
• 不同的語言，讓同樣一件事情、物品不同的角度與表述，不要太固執於「…一定是…」之類的想法。
• 語言是溝通的工具，沒有絕對的sop，達成溝通目的，比會講更重要。
• 當你學習外語，試著去了解該語言的結構，當你越清楚該語言的邏輯，就越能避開溝通上的誤解。
• 愛惜自己的母語，不要因為母語講的人少，就不去愛他、保存他，它蘊含了祖先長久的文化累積，還有豐富的語言故事。
• 尊重不同的語言，與成千上萬種不同的表達方式。

 

<講者書籍>

7,000 Universes: How the Language We Speak Shapes the Way We Think

預計2020/3/3才會上市-英文版 (Amazon接受預購)

 

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