EduCareer StaffBlog"Rinjin Blog" | "EduCareer"Supporting your career in English teaching in the Japanese school system

Does Language Influence Culture?

2011/09/21

We've all had the experience of grading essays where students leave out parts of sentences or otherwise translate directly from Japanese into English. This can happen even with fairly advanced students, and we may find ourselves asking why?

The Wall Street Journal offers an interesting article on how language use shapes thought. For example, in an experiment in which show the accidental breaking of a vase, native English speakers were easily able to remember who broke the vase, whereas native Japanese speakers were not. Researchers determined this was because of language structure. English uses the active voice with a subject- "he broke the vase", whereas a Japanese person would be more likely to use the passive "the vase was broken", sans subject. When presented with a situation where the vase was broken intentionally, both Japanese and English speakers could recall who did it because in that case in both languages the subject would be named.

Knowing this, it's not only that students don't know the correct English sentence, it's that they have problems even wrapping their minds around it. The situation makes more sense to them in Japanese than in English, even when presented appropriately in both languages. To truly develop fluency, students must become culturally fluent as well, enabling them to think "English style" instead of merely translating in their heads.

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