Name: 你所說的語言會改變你的思維方式嗎？ (Does the language you speak change how you think?)
Uploaded: 2025-05-23T07:36:24.000Z
Duration: 5 min 25 s

程度副詞

In George Orwell's 1984, the government is trying to force Britain, or rather, Airstrip One, to use Newspeak, a constructed language that would end thought crime.

在喬治-奧威爾的《1984》中，政府正試圖強迫英國，或者說強迫 "一號跑道 "使用 "新聞語"，這是一種杜絕思想犯罪的建構語言。

The goal, so the story goes, is to make it impossible to form ideas that could challenge the ruling party by taking away the words to think them with.

據說，這樣做的目的是通過剝奪思考的語言，讓人們無法形成挑戰執政黨的想法。

轉承詞

Linguists often cringe when they hear people talk about the idea that the language you speak determines how you can think, because it's... well, it's not really a thing.

當語言學家聽到人們談論 "語言決定思維方式 "這一觀點時，常常會感到不屑一顧，因為這......嗯，這並不是一件真正的事情。

It's been called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, because it's associated with Benjamin Lee Whorf, an early 20th century linguist, and his mentor Edward Sapir.

它被稱為薩皮爾-沃爾夫假說，因為它與 20 世紀早期的語言學家本傑明-李-沃爾夫和他的導師愛德華-薩皮爾有關。

They weren't the first, the last, or the loudest linguists to ask the question, and they never wrote anything even close to a hypothesis about it together.

他們不是第一個、最後一個提出這個問題的語言學家，也不是最大聲提出這個問題的語言學家，而且他們從來沒有共同寫過任何關於這個問題的假設。

They wondered how language could impact thought and vice versa, but no more than that.

他們想知道語言如何影響思想，反之亦然，但僅此而已。

The concept is known as linguistic determinism in its strong form, and linguistic relativism in its weak form.

這一概念的強勢形式稱為語言決定論，弱勢形式稱為語言相對主義。

Determinism, the strong version, is a popular trope in fiction, particularly science fiction.

決定論，即強決定論，是小說，尤其是科幻小說中一個流行的特例。

The film Arrival made it a major plot point and actually name-checked it.

電影《降臨》（Arrival）將其作為一個重要的情節點，並實實在在地點名了它。

If you immerse yourself into a foreign language, then you can actually rewire your brain.

如果你沉浸在一門外語中，那麼你實際上可以重新連接你的大腦。

The short story it's based on is much better.

它所改編的短篇小說要好得多。

Linguistic determinism is not taken very seriously by the linguistics community, as it's easily disprovable, either by attending a Philosophy 101 course, or just thinking about the phrase, I wish I could find the words to explain how I feel.

語言決定論並沒有受到語言學界的重視，因為它很容易被推翻，無論是通過參加哲學 101 課程，還是僅僅思考 "我希望我能找到詞來解釋我的感受 "這句話。

But the weak form, linguistic relativism, is much more broadly accepted.

但弱形式的語言相對主義得到了更廣泛的接受。

It is a difficult and messy thing to test for and prove, though.

不過，要測試和證明這一點，難度很大，也很麻煩。

You can find a lot of people claiming that the Russian language has no word for privacy, because the concept of privacy isn't part of traditional Russian culture.

很多人都說俄語中沒有 "隱私 "一詞，因為俄羅斯傳統文化中沒有 "隱私 "這一概念。

That might be true, I'm not Russian, couldn't tell you.

可能是真的，我不是俄羅斯人，說不準。

But that wouldn't be language limiting the way you think, that would be language reflecting the way you think.

但這不是語言限制了你的思維方式，而是語言反映了你的思維方式。

There have been studies that show things like German speakers, whose language says that key is masculine, are more likely to describe a key as jagged, rough, and hard, whereas Spanish speakers, where key is feminine, would be more likely to use golden or intricate.

有研究表明，說德語的人，他們的語言中 "鑰匙 "是陽性的，他們更傾向於用鋸齒狀、粗糙和堅硬來形容鑰匙，而說西班牙語的人，他們的語言中 "鑰匙 "是陰性的，他們更傾向於用金色或複雜來形容鑰匙。

I've referred to that exact study here in the past, but since then, other researchers have tried to replicate it, and they didn't find the same result, which is something that keeps happening across psychology and other fields.

我過去曾在這裡提到過這項研究，但從那以後，其他研究人員試圖複製這項研究，卻沒有發現相同的結果。

And besides, it's very difficult to tease apart the impacts of your culture and the impacts of your language.

此外，要把文化的影響和語言的影響區分開來是非常困難的。

Even if that result is true, which it's probably not, is the gendered language the cause or the effect?

即使這一結果是真實的（但很可能不是），性別化語言究竟是因還是果？

There are some clear impacts on how different languages, not cultures, affect the brain.

不同語言（而非文化）對大腦的影響是顯而易見的。

For example, our hearing tunes into the phonology, the sounds of the languages we speak.

例如，我們的聽覺能聽出語音，也就是我們所說語言的聲音。

In Hindi, for example, tal and tal are two different words, platter and rhythm, because ta and tt are considered different sounds based on the aspiration, the air that comes out.

例如，在印地語中，tal 和 tal 是兩個不同的單詞，platter 和 rhythm 是兩個不同的單詞，因為 ta 和 tt 被認為是基於吸氣（即發出的空氣）的不同聲音。

It's not passed down deliberately to children.

If you speak a language with that distinction, your brain will hear it automatically and unconsciously.

如果你說的語言有這種區別，你的大腦就會不自覺地自動聽到。

And if you don't, you have to try to actively listen for it.

如果你不這樣做，你就必須試著積極傾聽。

That's a pretty clear way that languages impact thought.

語言對思維的影響是顯而易見的。

But that doesn't feel close enough to the science fiction, does it?

但這感覺還不夠接近科幻小說，不是嗎？

It's not like it's changing your understanding of the world.

它又不會改變你對世界的理解。

Science fiction wants the language you speak to affect the categories in your head, the way you understand the world, particularly for abstract concepts rather than actual physical things.

科幻小說希望你所說的語言影響你頭腦中的分類，影響你理解世界的方式，尤其是對抽象概念而非實際物理事物的理解。

Emotions do get categorised in different ways by different humans all over the world.

全世界不同的人確實會以不同的方式對情緒進行分類。

In English, we can use the same word for two different feelings.

在英語中，我們可以用同一個詞來表達兩種不同的感覺。

If someone says, I'm sad, do they mean crying in the corner?

如果有人說 "我很傷心"，他們是指在角落裡哭泣嗎？

Those are both sad, in the same way that the sky and ocean are both blue.

這些都是悲傷的，就像天空和海洋都是藍色的一樣。

But if a child only knows the word sad, they've not heard of despondent, or listless, or morose, or ennui, well, the underlying emotions are still different.

但是，如果一個孩子只知道 "悲傷 "這個詞，卻沒聽說過 "絕望"、"無精打采"、"愁眉苦臉 "或 "愁眉苦臉"，那麼，他們的基本情緒還是不同的。

They can still tell whether someone's grieving the devastating loss of their cartoonishly large lollipop, or whether they're just tired and generally down.

他們仍能分辨出某人是在為失去卡通大棒棒糖而悲痛欲絕，還是隻是疲憊不堪、情緒低落。

Having the different words is really helpful for expressing yourself, but they don't determine your ability to feel emotions.

擁有不同的詞彙確實有助於表達自己，但它們並不能決定你感受情緒的能力。

And Ancient Greek had a lot of words for love.

古希臘語中有很多關於愛的詞彙。

In English, those are all basically translated as love with a lot of extra notes, but even though we only have one basic word to explain all those feelings and emotions, we still experience them, and we can communicate them without knowing Ancient Greek.

在英語中，這些詞基本上都被翻譯成愛，並加上了許多額外的註釋，但儘管我們只有一個基本詞彙來解釋所有這些感覺和情感，我們仍然會體驗到它們，而且我們可以在不懂古希臘語的情況下交流它們。

Until recently, English did not have a word for feeling joy at someone else's misfortune, but we still definitely experienced it before we borrowed Schadenfreude from German.

直到最近，英語中還沒有一個詞來形容對別人的不幸感到高興，但在我們從德語中借用 Schadenfreude 之前，我們肯定還是經歷過這種情況。

So the simple answer to the question is no, not really.

所以，問題的簡單答案是 "不"。

It might change how you listen to sounds, it might make some things easier to explain, but the idea that you can stop people bringing down the government by changing their language is, thankfully, just fiction.

它可能會改變你聽聲音的方式，可能會讓某些事情更容易解釋，但通過改變語言來阻止人們推翻政府的想法，幸好只是虛構的。

And if you want even more linguistics, my co-author Gretchen McCulloch has a podcast called Lingthusiasm.

如果你還想了解更多語言學知識，我的合著者格雷琴-麥庫洛克（Gretchen McCulloch）有一個名為 "Lingthusiasm "的播客。

The link is on screen and in the description.

字幕列表影片播放

你所說的語言會改變你的思維方式嗎？ (Does the language you speak change how you think?)

rhythm

devastating

concept

ancient