Hello, all! My name is Travis Kiefer and I am from Groton, SD. My first language is English, and the other languages I speak, or rather code, are html, css, javascript, and php. I have been a web developer for over a year and have worked in a fully immersive coding environment, also known as a job.
I applied for Professor Boroditsky's intro seminar because I am fascinated by the questions she asks. Being a coder, rather than a "speaker" of another language, I tried to think of how coding influenced me. In my day to day life, I think about speech and conversations as being multi-dimensional, layered, and full of meaning, both literally and figuratively. When I've been coding for a significant period of time (2-4 hours), I start thinking in a very literal and specific manner. If someone asks what I have been up to, I start to ask questions like “When?”, “Do you mean what I've been doing, or what I've been thinking, or what I'm trying to accomplish?”; it all boils down to “What do you mean specifically?”
Due to the necessity of being explicit when programming, I am starting to understand and conceptualize why people think differently when speaking different languages, and attaining this tiny bit of insight makes me even more excited for this course! One of the largest reasons why I'm intrigued by the questions proposed is because I want to understand why people think the way they do, and more specifically, the neurological underpinnings of those beliefs and thought patterns.
