Joan O'C. Hamilton presents a rather interesting idea on how culture affects language. She explains while one language may not be descriptive, another needs to describe to be able to fully explain the event/action/person/etc. This need to describe may also affect the way different cultures perceive how things happen. A cognitive scientist, Boroditsky, believes "these influences may provide insight to a given culture's conception of time, space, colour or even justice". However, a bilingual individual would perceive the event/action/person "regardless of the conventions of verb forms used".
Hamilton's text connects to our class discussion on Bilingualism and how it relates to identity and culture. However, the opinion that one may "switch" identities while speaking different language is not shared with Hamilton. "Some of the biggest debates in the study of the mind - nature versus nurture". Boroditsky focuses on the idea that culture affects our way of describing things, similarly to concepts we have studied in class.
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