I don’t often recommend articles from a rival publication, since (of course) Compliance Week delivers every bit of information our readers could possibly want. But an essay from the Wall Street Journal’s latest weekend edition merits an exception.
The July 23 article, “Lost in Translation” by Lera Boroditsky, explores how differences in language shape peoples’ thinking. That is, the very way a person speaks and understands his native language can cause his brain to develop differently than the speaker of another language. Ultimately, two people who speak different languages might even have different natural abilities to, say, sense which direction they’re facing, or to recall events they’ve seen—all because the act of speaking their native tongue forces their brains to develop differently.
