Language, Thought, and Dreams
November 30, 2021
By Amanda Bang
A language is a structured method of communication by mostly speech and gesture. There are thousands of different languages present around the world, with many different systems and dialects within. Boston University being a very diverse school, has a large number of students that know a variety of languages. BU has undergraduate and graduate students from over 130 countries and according to 2020 data, there were 10,646 international students attending BU. In classes all over campus or just taking a walk down Commonwealth Avenue, you might have heard languages other than English spoken, whether it be someone practicing another language for class or some students speaking in their native language fluently. But have you ever wondered what languages are thought of or heard inside their minds?
Although formulating thoughts can be done without words, one main way people think is with words. Similarly, people hear language and words in their dreams too. According to an article from Psychology Today, people can dream and think in multiple different languages, even if the language itself is not one’s native or fluent language. As this is such an intriguing topic, I interviewed some BU students that know and speak multiple languages to hear their experiences with language and their internal minds.
Jenny Oh, a junior in Questrom, is from South Korea. Oh had a Korean education in her younger years and lived both in South Korea and in the U.S. She identifies to be a native speaker in Korean and says is “fluent” in English. In terms of thoughts, Oh says she mostly thinks in Korean, quantifying around 70% as the amount of times she thinks in the Korean language. For dreams, she says it depends on the context and the location.
“If I spend a lot of time in the U.S. studying in college, sometimes I dream in English,” Oh said. “But when I’m back home, I dream in Korean.”
She mentioned location as a large factor because she would dream more often in a language she spoke in the day.
“It depends on location because if I’m in Korea, I speak more Korean,” said Oh. “So I think location affects the most.”
Another student in BU who speaks multiple languages is Jefferson Setiawan. He is an international student from Indonesia, and considers Indonesian as his first language and English as his second language.
“Although speaking casually, I’m more fluent in Indonesian,” Setiawan said. “In terms of reading and writing professionally, it’s easier in English because all my education has been in English.”
Setiawan said he thinks a little more in Indonesian, quantifying it as 60%. In terms of dream, he said it “switches back and forth equally.” He added that it depends on the context of the dream as well.
“Within the dream, if it’s about the people I speak English with, it’s probably in English,” he said.