Language and thinking: a contrastive characterization of English, French, German and Russian, with its application to language pedagogy

Abstract

This paper seeks to give in a concise manner a holistic characterization of English, French, German and Russian, revealing at the same time the types of thinking (or thought patterns) involving these languages. The four languages are characterized respectively as being experiential/pragmatic, rational/ dualistic, idealistic, and antithetical. Based on these observations, some suggestions as to the pedagogy of foreign languages are also made.