Your debts and health depend on your language - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#13919303
Language influences the way we think and how we behave. Under the title „The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior: Evidence from Savings Rates, Health Behaviors, and Retirement Assets“, the Yale researcher Keith Chen has published a study in which he found that people whose native language requires speakers to make a clear distinction between present and future actions tend to have more debt, save less for retirement, are more overweight and less healthy than people whose native language is more flexible in this respect. Natives of the first group also place more emphasis on short term earnings than on long-term earnings.

Some of the languages which require a clear distinction between future and present are Greek, Italian, Portuguese, English, Italian, French, Irish and Spanish. Among the languages where this distinction is more fluid are German, Japanese, most Scandinavian languages, Chinese and Korean.

For example, the English sentence “the sun will shine tomorrow” generally requires the future tense, while in German the same sentence can be both in the present or in the future (“Morgen scheint die Sonne” (present), “Morgen wird die Sonne scheinen” (future))

The theory is that people who habitually make that distinction due to their language pattern will tend to treat the future as more remote and therefore spend more today, worry less about future health effect of for example, smoking, overeating or lack of exercise and save less for retirement.

Languages differ dramatically in how much they require their speakers to mark the timing of events
when speaking. In this paper I test the hypothesis that being required to speak differently about future
events (what linguists call strongly grammaticalized future-time reference) leads speakers to treat the
future as more distant, and to take fewer future-oriented actions. Consistent with this hypothesis I
find that in every major region of the world, speakers of strong-FTR languages save less per year, hold
less retirement wealth, smoke more, are more likely to be obese, and suffer from worse long-run health.


Read the full article:

http://cowles.econ.yale.edu/P/cd/d18a/d1820.pdf

On a more positive note, I hear from informed sources that the Goethe Institute in Athens is currently overrun by students wanting to learn German ;-)
#13919449
This is fascinating. It makes sense, given that there is in fact a proven causative link between conceptual reasoning and linguistics
#13919466
Publius wrote:Can I play catch-up by learning a language like this?

Probably not. Since your neuro-linguistic connection at childhood was already made to English, your brain processes information like an Anglo -- I find it doubtful that learning German would help.

Of course, you could immerse yourself in German so much you start thinking in it and report the results.
#13920729
I call BS. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is only accepted in a weak form where very few mental processes would be affected by language. The idea that one's language has enormous effect on the way one thinks had been thrown out by linguists decades ago. This researcher apparently espouses some radical form of Sapir-Whorf and his research is therefore on the periphery of mainstream linguistics.
#13920861
I have not doubt that there is a relation between language and the way we think and act. What I’m doubtful about is that a single linguistic feature, such as the way in which future and present tenses are used, can determine specific modes of behavior, such as saving and health activities. Language is part of culture. The way we think and behave is formed by our culture and by our language.
#13921448
Zenno wrote:I have not doubt that there is a relation between language and the way we think and act. What I’m doubtful about is that a single linguistic feature, such as the way in which future and present tenses are used, can determine specific modes of behavior, such as saving and health activities. Language is part of culture. The way we think and behave is formed by our culture and by our language.


What is the basis for your unconditional belief in the relation between language and action? What journal articles/books have you read that made you reach that conclusion?
#13944256
Dr House wrote:This is fascinating. It makes sense, given that there is in fact a proven causative link between conceptual reasoning and linguistics


The "proven causative link" is actually a largely questionable hypothesis. Sapir-Whorf has never been conclusively demonstrated to be true. The issue here really comes down to people's ability to conceptualize ideas they have no word to describe in their language's lexicon. People obviously do have a strong capability to do exactly that--as evidenced by people who speak English who can obviously grasp the idea that the future depends on the present despite not having a word or simple grammatical mechanism to express that. The classic example of colors merely demonstrates that communication is a problem--while speakers of languages with fewer or greater colors might categorize a particular wavelength of light differently, that does not prevent them from seeing all the same colors.

Linguistic relativity has been shown to have meaningful consequences on communication, but it has not been shown to have meaningful consequences for thought. We know that at a very basic level brains process and store information as connections between neurons--not according to languages.
#13944342
Aekos wrote:What is the basis for your unconditional belief in the relation between language and action? What journal articles/books have you read that made you reach that conclusion?


What can one do with some pieces of paper? I fire my stove in the winter.

There are such things as reason and commen sense.

That tells me that our conduct is substantially conditioned by culture. Language is inextricably linked with culture, it is the vehicle for culture, it is culture: culture is langue, language is culture.

Moreover, there is experience. Having lived abroad for over 40 years and using half a dozen languages on a regular basis, my observation of foreign cultures, people and languages concur with my reason.

Now, how language/culture condition behaviour may be a subject of research. And as I said, I don't necessarily concur with the paper cited in the OP.

What else do you need to know?
#13944590
Zenno wrote:
What can one do with some pieces of paper? I fire my stove in the winter.

There are such things as reason and commen sense.


Oh, so you have reviewed none of the literature and believe that your anecdotal evidence is proof for your claims. Quaint.
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