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Perception of Language

This essay discusses how language may shape our perception of reality. It provides examples of how speakers of different languages may perceive colors, spatial relationships, time, and gender differently due to influences of their native language. For instance, some languages do not distinguish certain colors as separate, instead seeing them as shades of other colors. Grammatical gender assignments, like masculine chairs and feminine beds in Russian, can influence ideas of gender. Overall, the essay argues that language is integral to how we experience and understand the world as we develop our perspectives and worldviews throughout life.

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Margarito Escalante
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63 views

Perception of Language

This essay discusses how language may shape our perception of reality. It provides examples of how speakers of different languages may perceive colors, spatial relationships, time, and gender differently due to influences of their native language. For instance, some languages do not distinguish certain colors as separate, instead seeing them as shades of other colors. Grammatical gender assignments, like masculine chairs and feminine beds in Russian, can influence ideas of gender. Overall, the essay argues that language is integral to how we experience and understand the world as we develop our perspectives and worldviews throughout life.

Uploaded by

Margarito Escalante
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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UNIVERSIDAD AUTONOMA DE CHIAPAS

MARGARITO ESCALANTE CRUZ


DESCRIPCION LINGÜÍSTICA DEL INGLES B
ANGELICA PATRICIA CORDOBA MEZA
LANGUAGE PERCEPTION ESSAY
MAY 15TH 2021
ESSAY
Does an English speaker perceive reality differently from a Spanish speaker? Does
language shape our thoughts and change the way we think? In this essay I would try to
answer these questions and probably the very idea that words, grammar and chunks of
language may result in the way we perceive experiences and life itself.
This concept has been a sharp point of argumentation among linguists, but how much
impact does language have in the way we think? Can be some factors like culture,
traditions and habits considered and even how we remember things.
For instance, the how we perceive the colors, a person in another country may perceive
some other different shades of the same color we know, this matter about a color may
be a concept that illustrates very well how languages changes our perception of reality
because for some people in another countries, they don’t see a color unless there is a
word for this or another example, they see orange not as a color but as a shade of red.
Imagine being at space how you define north, south, west and east, spatial location is
another example how language defines our reality. Humans communicate using a great
number of languages and every language has its features and they differ from one
another, we can see that cultures were so different and language as a gift, and we
appreciate it its role in building our mental life and brings us closer to the understanding
of the very nature of humanity.
One way you can realize how language affects our reality, then look at the way people
talk, you can see how they try to attend the way language is encoded in different
aspects in order to use the language properly, the utterances they make, the body
gestures and the sounds it implies. The very representation through language of time,
numbers, music, morality and emotions are examples on how the language has to do
with our perception of reality.
The idea of time for example differs across languages, some of them like in Spanish for
example they say “in a second” which they mean they will be there soon, or that the
lapse of time is going to be minutes or even hours, but if a Japanese is told “I will be
there in a second” he will turn his head up, down, left and right to look for the person he
is going to meet and gets confused.
Even basic aspects of time perception can be affected by language, an English speaker
would say “That was a short talk” he may mean the meeting did not take long and
Spanish and Greek speakers prefer to talk about time in terms of amount.
Grammatical gender is another example of this issue, in English we use third person
like he, she, it and in Spanish we use like “el” in third person and what about treating
chairs as masculine and beds as feminine as in Russian grammar, does it change the
concept of gender as feminine and masculine? It does really.
To sum up language is central to our experience and that is how we are perceiving our
reality as we are growing up, constructing our perspective on how the world is and the
way we live our life.

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