Lera Boroditsky’s Lost in Translation was written and published in the Wall Street
Journal in 2010. The articles main audience focuses on the upper middle class around the United States who subscribe to the Wall Street Journal. The intended audience being relatively wealthy and educated people, who may or may not necessarily know anything about the subject Boroditsky is writing about. Because of this, Boroditsky’s approach is very factual and straightforward in trying to inform the readers on her argument that language does indeed shape the way people think. The choice …show more content…
These examples include the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme, a language study done at Stanford University, and a research experiment completed in Pormpuraaw, a remote Aboriginal community in Australia (Boroditsky, 437-439). The choice to add the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme as an example of how language shapes the way people think connects Boroditsky’s argument to her audience on an emotional level. Boroditsky’s audience, being well educated american citizens, were more than likely to have been raised listening to nursery rhymes such as Humpty Dumpty. This presents a unique opportunity for Boroditsky to convey that her argument has always been valid deeper in the live of her audience before they even knew what it consisted of. This allows the readers to reflect back on past life situations to consider the possibility that Boroditsky is correct, in that language does indeed shape the way people think.
However, the studies Boroditsky chose to include produce a different response for her audience. Instead of an emotional response, the readers are now able to see the logic and statistics behind Boroditsky’s main point. These examples compel the facts behind Boroditsky’s article which in turn brings a sense of further credibility for the