Can Language Change How We Think?

Guest: Lera Boroditsky, PhD, Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California San Diego, and Author of the forthcoming “7,000 Universes: How the Languages We Speak Shape the Way We Think” In French, there are two forms of the pronoun “you.” There’s “vous,” that’s more formal for when you’re talking to strangers or superiors. And there’s the informal “tu,” for friends and family. But how close do you need to be before making the switch to using “tu” with people? Is it presumptuous to suddenly start using “tu” one day? When a French speaker makes that switch from "vous" to "tu," does it change the way the people in the relationship think about each other?