Conditioned Reading
I think that how we read is often more important than what we read. The way we process information, including religious information, is deeply conditioned upon our life and cultural context and experience. Some argue that we all process information more or less the same. But recent research by Stanford neurolinguistics professor Lera Boroditsky shows how language and cultural conditioning deeply impacts textual understanding.
Lera’s main focus is language itself. She shows that ”people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world.” Her work brings us much closer to understanding how language plays a central role in constructing our thoughts and behavior. A summary of her work is here.
“We gave people sets of pictures that showed some kind of temporal progression (e.g., pictures of a man aging, or a crocodile growing, or a banana being eaten). Their job was to arrange the shuffled photos on the ground to show the correct temporal order. We tested each person in two separate sittings, each time facing in a different cardinal direction. If you ask English speakers to do this, they’ll arrange the cards so that time proceeds from left to right. Hebrew speakers will tend to lay out the cards from right to left, showing that writing direction in a language plays a role. So what about folks like the Kuuk Thaayorre, who don’t use words like “left” and “right”? What will they do?
The Kuuk Thaayorre did not arrange the cards more often from left to right than from right to left, nor more toward or away from the body. But their arrangements were not random: there was a pattern, just a different one from that of English speakers. Instead of arranging time from left to right, they arranged it from east to west. That is, when they were seated facing south, the cards went left to right. When they faced north, the cards went from right to left. When they faced east, the cards came toward the body and so on. This was true even though we never told any of our subjects which direction they faced. The Kuuk Thaayorre not only knew that already (usually much better than I did), but they also spontaneously used this spatial orientation to construct their representations of time.”
Fascinating. In religious culture, there is often a tension between those who are conditioned to read using positivist /reductionist filters drawn from scientific rationalism and those who read with apophatic filters which acknowledge the inherent limitations of text and language in conveying Spirit. Rather than downplaying these cultural differences, or taking too strong a position on either side of the tension, Boroditsky’s studies remind us that we may not have much of a choice in the matter – that how we read and interpret is largely preconditioned by each person’s unique history and life circumstances. HT
Tags: Semiotics
June 18th, 2009 at 12:10 am
Hello John,
Do you think these ideas of viewing carry subconsciously into our interpretation of biblical text? Even if someone is trying to be open to God’s truth will that person battle with their past influences, say from childhood. If I was raised in a fundamentalist church as a child, and now reject that theology, is my interpretation biased by my parent’s teachings anyway? Even when I seek unbiased truth. Or say an opposite type of liberal religious upbringing and its results.
I suppose each of us brings a unique perspective to the table in communion with one another. I also suppose that each of us have unique demons which we battle daily stemming from our previous experiences and mental programming. This is interesting research. I wonder how I might be programming my five year old son right now for his future modes of interpretation. That can be a scary thought. I suppose that’s where you just have to do your best and leave the rest in God’s hands.
Take care,
Ron
June 19th, 2009 at 12:23 am
Hi Ron. Sure, we inject inherited biases into our subjective readings (religion, soft sciences, ethics, politics at all levels..). But what I find more interesting than the biases themselves are the justifications behind those biases.
Looks like we won’t be at Orcas Kindlings next month. We’ll miss everyone.
June 21st, 2009 at 10:55 am
Hi John and Ron, This stuff is indeed interesting! I was studying the concepts of how language shapes perception 30 years ago in my linguistics work, just as the field of psycho-linguistics was starting to take off and there was emerging work on “discourse analysis” to compare how differences in the preferred processing modes of different language groups created conflict in cross-cultural communication. I’ve tried to incorporate those insights into my current work on paradigms by making “information processing” the integrating point for how the rest of our worldview gets constructed. (And here, I use information processing as a combination of biases from grammar and discourse factors from our native language, plus providential brain-based differences in our learning styles.)
In response to Ron’s illustration of fundamental and liberal theologies injecting bias, I’d suggest that from an information processing perspective, both of those theologies use similar overall thinking tools: analysis. Both split concepts apart from the whole into its components, or from a paradox into polar opposites. It just so happens that fundamentalists/conservatives consistently choose the individualistic side of the split and liberals consistently choose the social side of the split. But both are based on mental dissection. So, both conservatives and liberals train their children to divide things into pieces, and that is an even more core bias that cuts across everything than the specific values or worldviews these parents might try to instill.
Again, from an information processing perspective only, as a paradoxical thinker, I consistently keep the polar opposites together in dynamic tension. I keep the whole alive and intact instead of dividing it into parts. As me for my favorite film and I will have trouble responding because I have many layers of interests related to films and thus many overall favorites depending on the interest/issue – not one final and overall favorite. To a paradoxical both/and person, the either/or question is infuriating.
Anyway, I cannot but come up with a completely different set of values or worldview perspectives or theological planks because everything about the way I process life keeps me from becoming EITHER a conservative OR a liberal. If people analyze my values they’d probably say I’m just a messy smorgasbord of both. But that just means they’ve reduced me to a list … as is their inherent way as analytic processors. As a paradoxical processor, I’d keep me intact and complex.
The intriguing thing is, there are linguistic-cultural groups where the language itself is biased toward paradox and the entire society processes holistically, predominantly in paradoxes. In that culture, the analytic person is the conundrum. Is it any wonder that typical Western conservative or liberal theology “doesn’t make sense” in such a society?
Okay, well, hope that makes sense. Meanwhile, I sense that my brain now has gaps in it from this outpouring that perhaps coffee will nicely replenish. Have a great rest of the weekend!
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:45 pm
“there are linguistic-cultural groups where the language itself is biased toward paradox and the entire society processes holistically, predominantly in paradoxes. In that culture, the analytic person is the conundrum.”
Brad, can you tell me more about these cultural groups? Aboriginal? Peruvian indian?