Professor Lera Boroditsky (born c.1976) is a cognitive scientist and professor in the fields of language and cognition. She is one of the main contributors to the theory of linguistic relativity, which suggests that the structure of a language affects its speakers’ worldview or cognition, and thus people’s perceptions are relative to their spoken language. Boroditsy is a Searle Scholar, a McDonnell Scholar, recipient of a National Science Foundation Career award, and an American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientist. She is Professor of Cognitive Science at UCSD. Previously, she served on the faculty at MIT and at Stanford.
Quote: “Now, of course there isn’t just one language in the world, there are about 7,000 languages… And all the languages differ from one another in all kinds of ways… That begs the question: Does the language we speak shape the way we think? [The] arguments have gone back and forth for thousands of years. But until recently, there hasn’t been any data to help us decide either way. Recently, in my lab and other labs around the world, we’ve started doing research, and now we have actual scientific data to weigh in on this question.”
Sources: Introduction from Wikipedia, quotation from irl.umsl.edu
Learn more about Lera Broditsky from Wikipedia. ►
Watch “How language shapes the way we think” [13:26]. ►
Watch “Distinguished Speaker Lera Boroditsky Abridged Talk” [19:18]. ►
Watch “Time Is Shaped by Language | Lera Boroditsky” [5:13]. ►
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