This is because I think most of the time other factors, culture being the most obvious one, screens off language as an explanation for differing thought patterns among people who speak different languages.
There is not a one-to-one correlation between culture and language of course. The screening off is fairly weak. Brazil and Portugal simply do not have the same culture, nor for that matter do Texas and California.
If you somehow managed to change the language a person speaks without changing anything else, you will not see a systematic effect on his thought patterns.
Even stronger separation happens for those who can speak multiple languages, and for these people culture does not screen off language. We can actually “change the language a person speaks” in this case. Do the polylingual talk about being able to think differently in different languages?
Brazil and Portugal simply do not have the same culture, nor for that matter do Texas and California.
I don’t think that has anything to do with the strength of the screening-off at all.
P(T|C&L)=P(A|C) means C screens off L, which does not mean P(T|L&C)=P(T|L) meaning L screens of C. Screening off is not symmetric.
Or in other words, I have not said that if 2 cultures are not the same but their languages are, then the thinking could not be different.
Even stronger separation happens for those who can speak multiple languages, and for these people culture does not screen off language. We can actually “change the language a person speaks” in this case. Do the polylingual talk about being able to think differently in different languages?
Nice one. My prediction is that their thinking would not be affected in any systematic way at the level of abstractions.
There is not a one-to-one correlation between culture and language of course. The screening off is fairly weak. Brazil and Portugal simply do not have the same culture, nor for that matter do Texas and California.
Even stronger separation happens for those who can speak multiple languages, and for these people culture does not screen off language. We can actually “change the language a person speaks” in this case. Do the polylingual talk about being able to think differently in different languages?
I don’t think that has anything to do with the strength of the screening-off at all.
P(T|C&L)=P(A|C) means C screens off L, which does not mean P(T|L&C)=P(T|L) meaning L screens of C. Screening off is not symmetric.
Or in other words, I have not said that if 2 cultures are not the same but their languages are, then the thinking could not be different.
Nice one. My prediction is that their thinking would not be affected in any systematic way at the level of abstractions.