By Hannah Tu

Control words, control ideas.

It’s a reoccurring theme in sci-fi movies and dystopian novels. Take “precision of language” in Lois Lowry’s “The Giver,” “Newspeak” from Orwell’s “1984,” or book burning in Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” and you get the picture. Far from being confined to the realm of fiction, this fascinating relationship between words and ideas plays out in the real world too. History bears witness to the suppression of local dialects and banning of certain words, highlighting the potency of language to instigate rebellion or retain a cultural heritage. The reality is, language shapes us in subtle but influential ways.

Back in the 1930s, the pedagogues of the day introduced the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (or linguistic relativity hypothesis) to explain the association between words and thoughts. This hypothesis asserts that the particular language we speak — think French, Mandrin, or Khoisan — influences our perception of the world around us. Therefore, different language speakers think in different ways. Although extreme variants of this hypothesis have been largely abandoned by the scientific community, there is a fascinating connection between the words we use and how we perceive the world.

Lera Boroditsky, associate professor of cognitive science at the University of California San Diego, studies this relationship between language and the human experience. She was amazed that a five-year-old child from a small Australian Aboriginal community had a dead accurate sense of cardinal directions. Boroditsky asked the girl to point north, which the child did without hesitation. Boroditsky later asked the same question to a group of prize-winning scholars and hands pointed in all directions.

The difference? Turns out the girl’s Kuuk Thaayorre language orients everything in terms of north, south, east, and west. In English, it’d be like saying, “Stand southeast of the man” or “I saw your eraser in the north-north-west drawer.” The Kuuk Thaayorre language by nature trains its speakers to think in terms of cardinal directions as opposed to left and right. 

It gets crazier. Keith Chen, a behavioral economist at UCLA, wanted to test whether “futureless” language speakers have different time perceptions than futured languages (i.e., languages that use past, present, and future tenses to distinguish time). He found that speakers of languages like Mandarin, German, and Scandinavian (where present and future are not necessarily distinguished) tended to invest in future-oriented activities such as saving and working out. Even when controlling for socioeconomic status and religion, futureless language speakers saved 5% more for the future. By contrast, languages that separate the present from the future (such as English and several romance languages) were less likely to focus on the future in areas of physical health and savings.

Not that we should be entirely surprised. The Bible has a lot to say about the influence of words. From the beginning of creation itself, the fate of humanity rested on the simplest of phrases: God used words to command the earth into existence; mankind was cast out of fellowship from God, tempted by the subtle whispers of a snake. Throughout the Bible, we see admonitions to control our tongue, speak the truth, and use our conversations for building others up — attesting to the damage or blessing our words can bring.

So what does this mean for us today? For one thing, we need to be intentional with the words we use. Since words have the power to direct our thoughts and influence our thinking, what we say and how we say it matters. Consider the common word-battles in today’s culture. What is brought to mind by the word “baby”? How about “fetus”? If you are “pro-life,” are you automatically “anti-choice”? Is the transgender issue about bodily mutilation or gender-affirming care?

Words shape perception, which is why we must strive for truth while resisting misleading terminologies. While we can’t control the influx of words and ideas we encounter every day, we can control how we frame these words and how we present our convictions to our hearers. In the battle of ideas, words are invaluable weapons. Proceed with caution.