Module 7: Thinking for Speaking.

In Module 7, one of the main topics discussed, was if language can shape how we think. I would say it is safe to say that the idea of language limits what we are capable of thinking, or what concepts we capable of understanding, has been debunked. Yet, whether language changes our perception of certain concepts, is a question that is still up in the air. It seems to me that language can change your perception of certain things. For instance, the concept of a joke. I’m sure everyone you know including yourself, has heard a joke. In my case, I have heard jokes in both English and Spanish, being that I am bilingual. With that in mind, there has been countless times that I remember being in Mexico with my family, I would hear a joke in Spanish, and I would instinctually think: I am absolutely telling this one to my friends back home! I would then retell the joke in my head to make sure that I had it right. Next, I would translate the joke in my head. Lastly, I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t tell my friends the joke. The reason being: it wasn’t funny. Not because the actual joke wasn’t funny, rather, a literal translation would simply not work. Either it didn’t make sense, or it wasn’t funny, but the end result was that I could not tell my friends the joke. For those of you that have experienced this, you know how annoying that feeling is, unless you figured out how to tell the joke in English. The same thing happens for jokes in English if you try to tell them in Spanish. Obviously, this does not happen with all jokes, but unfortunately it seems like it is always the good ones. I don’t really have an answer as to why that is. One idea is that language changes our perception of certain things. What I mean by this is, if tell a joke in Spanish to one of my cousins, he might burst out laughing, but when I tell my friend that same joke in English, he might say “Okay…” This doesn’t mean that my friend did not get the concept or understand what I was saying, rather it simply was not funny to him. It might have to do with the order of the words in Spanish, or the punchline, or maybe the joke has a cultural aspect.  Again, I don’t have the answer, but I would be surprised if another bilingual individual has not experienced this situation (in any combination of languages, not just English/Spanish). So, when it comes to the perception of things, language might have an effect. If you have had similar experiences, or even contradictory experiences to mine, I would be more than happy to hear about it.