阅读理解 Speakers of different languages not only describe(描述)the world differently but think about it differently too, according to a new study． Researchers used a cartoon cat to study how language was reflected(反映)in the gestures people made． Dr Sotaro Kita of the University of Bristol's Department of Experimental Psychology(心理学), showed the cartoon to a group of native English, Japanese and Turkish speakers and then watched their gestures as they described the action they had seen． He found speakers of the three different languages used different gestures to describe the same event, which appeared to reflect the way the structure of their languages expressed that event． For example, when describing a scene where the cat swings(摇摆)on a rope, the English speakers used gestures showing an arc(弧形)orbit and the Japanese and Turkish speakers tended to use straight gestures showing the motion but not the arc． Dr Kita suggests this is because Japanese and Turkish have no proper verb to express the English meaning “to swing”． While English speakers use the arc gesture as their language can readily express the change of location and the arc-shaped orbit, Japanese and Turkish speakers cannot as easily express the idea of movement with an arc orbit so they use the straight gesture． Dr Kita said,“My research suggests that speakers of different languages make different images of the same event in a way that matches the expressive possibilities of their own language．In other words, language influences spatial(空间的)thinking at the moment of speaking．” | 
