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Does Language Create and Shape our Thoughts?

Posted by Bonnie Bright on November 5, 2010 at 5:00pm
"Charlemagne is reputed to have said that to speak another language is to possess another soul,"says the co-author of a recent Harvard study which suggests people's opinions and preferences toward ethnic groups vary depending on which language they use to express their thoughts. This suggests language is not only a tool for communication, but also actually serves to create and shape our thoughts and feelings.

Since implicit attitudes lead to outward social behaviors, all this leads to a bigger question as to whether we might actually change our likes and dislikes based on the language we use. Results of the IAT, the Implicit Association Test indicated preferences undeniably differed for test subjects who first took the test in one language, then took the same test again in another language with which they were already familiar.

It was the 1930s when Linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf first suggested language can determine thought. Now, the question of whether or not our attitudes are fixed or can actually shift based on the language we choose and use may open a significant door to reconsideration of how we see and judge the archetypal Other in our everyday ways of being.

Read the article at http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/206742.php
Tags: Other, archetypal, language, preferences
Posted by Bonnie Bright

ABOUT THE HOSTS/PRESENTERS
BONNIE BRIGHT, Ph.D.,(Founder of Depth Psychology Alliance), is a Transpersonal Soul-Centered Coach certified via Alef Trust/Middlesex University, and a certified Archetypal Pattern Analyst®, and has trained extensively in Holotropic Breathwork™ and the Enneagram. She has trained with African elder, Malidoma Some'; with Transpersonal Pioneer Stan Grof; and with Jungian analyst, Jerome Bernstein, among others.Her dissertation focused on a symbolic look at Colony Collapse Disorder and what the mass vanishing of honeybees means to us both personally and as a collective. Bonnie’s path to soul began with a spontaneous mystical experience in 2006, and she continues her quest for awakening each day with a sense of joy, freedom, and gratitude at the magic afoot in the world.

JAMES R. NEWELL, Ph.D., MTS, (Director of Depth Psychology Alliance) earned his Ph.D. in History and Critical Theories of Religion from Vanderbilt University (2007), and holds a master's degree in pastoral counseling and theology from the Vanderbilt University Divinity School (2001). James is also the director of the Depth Psychology Academy, offering college-level courses in Jungian and depth psychology. James has spent much of his working life as a professional musician, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist with interests in jazz, blues, folk, world, and devotional music. Since his youth, James has worked with a variety of blues greats including John Lee Hooker, James Cotton, Jr. Wells, Hubert Sumlin, Big Joe Turner, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and others.