Does the language you speak affect how you think about the world? This question
is taken up in three experiments. English and Mandarin talk about time differently—
English predominantly talks about time as if it were horizontal, while Mandarin also
commonly describes time as vertical. This difference between the two languages is
reflected in the way their speakers think about time. In one study, Mandarin speakers
tended to think about time vertically even when they were thinking for English
(Mandarin speakers were faster to confirm that March comes earlier than April if
they had just seen a vertical array of objects than if they had just seen a horizontal
array, and the reverse was true for English speakers). Another study showed that the
extent to which Mandarin–English bilinguals think about time vertically is related to
how old they were when they first began to learn English. In another experiment
native English speakers were taught to talk about time using vertical spatial terms
in a way similar to Mandarin. On a subsequent test, this group of English speakers
showed the same bias to think about time vertically as was observed with Mandarin
speakers. It is concluded that (1) language is a powerful tool in shaping thought
about abstract domains and (2) one’s native language plays an important role in
shaping habitual thought (e.g., how one tends to think about time) but does not
entirely determine one’s thinking in the strong Whorfian sense.