Writing as a Block for Asians

[Dave Monroe]

Opinions expressed below may not reflect those of ..., but, speaking as we were (some time ago) of subjunctivity, from Emily Eakin, "Writing as a Block for Asians," NY Times, Saturday, May 3rd, 2003 ... "... in a 1981 book, 'The Linguistic Shaping of Thought: A Study in the Impact of Language on Thinking in China and the West,' Alfred H. Bloom, a linguist who is now the president of Swarthmore College, argued that the lack of a subjunctive tense in Chinese made it extremely difficult for native speakers to explore 'counterfactual' conceits (for example: if Gisele were fat, she wouldn't be a supermodel).  "When Mr. Bloom tested Chinese and American students on a series of counterfactuals, he found that the Chinese students were typically unable to distinguish between events that really happened and false hypotheticals. The implication, Mr. Bloom argued, is that Chinese is more concrete than English, and, as a consequence, Chinese speakers have more trouble with abstract thought than Americans." http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/03/arts/03ASIA.html

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