Course Catalog

Language as the Mirror of the Mind

If Eskimos have more words for snow, do they perceive it differently from us? Are Russians, who have different words for darker and lighter shades of blue, better able to visually discriminate shades of blue? Are the Piraha, a tribe in the Amazon rainforest whose language lacks number words, not able to keep track of exact quantities? And do speakers of Australian aboriginal languages, who say north, south, east and west rather than left and right, have better spatial orientation? In short, does our language affect how we think and perceive the world? Or are there universal aspects of human language and cognition which transcend linguistic divisions? In this course, we will discuss some of the most hotly debated, and indeed fundamental issues in linguistics; examine important theories of language and its relationship to thought and culture, such as the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis; and scrutinize current research on both culture-specific and universal aspects of human languages. Our overarching goal is to gain a better understanding of the human nature through what Leibniz called “the best mirror of the human mind” – our language. (No background in linguistics is necessary.)

This class is not available at this time.

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