By the language of responsibility, we mean the way we report events for which someone might be held responsible --- events for which someone might be blamed, or praised. For example, in reporting a famous event witnessed by millions of people on TV, I might say "Justin Timberlake ripped off Janet Jackson’s blouse, revealing her naked – uh --- chest." Well, actually, her right breast, not to be overly euphemistic.

我描述的是汀布莱克可能要为此负责的行为，他和CBS一起，揭露了全世界年轻无辜的超级碗观众的赤裸胸部。

That’s not the way Timberlake described it, however. He said that as he reached across her blouse, "a wardrobe malfunction occurred”. He described the same event, but without a person to hold responsible for opening the blouse. Presumably he thought that made him sound less culpable. Still, millions of people saw it. They saw Timberlake reach across Jackson’s blouse, unclip something, her blouse fall open, and her exposed breast. Even if that wasn’t his intention, it's clear he did it.

Shakespeare said that a rose smells as sweet, no matter what one calls it. If he were correct, anyone who witnessed that Super Bowl moment should realize it was something Timberlake was responsible for, no matter how it's described. But interestingly enough Shakespeare was wrong. There's quite a bit of evidence that if you blindfold people and ask them to smell an aroma, what youcall这种香气对他们的愉悦程度有很大的影响。如果你叫它玫瑰，他们可能会喜欢。如果你只是叫它花，他们会喜欢，但可能不会那么喜欢。如果你只是叫它植物，那就更不是了。And so on

Now suppose you show two groups of people the same footage of from the Super Bowl. You say to one group:

"You're going to see a video where Justin Timberlake reaches across the front of Jackson’s body, unfastens a snap and tears part of the bodice!"

To the other group you say:

"Timberlake reaches across the front of Jackson’s body. A snap unfastens and part of the bodice tears!"

So, what would happen if you ask, "Was this Timberlake’s fault? Should someone be fined?"

We might think that whatshouldhappen is that it shouldn't make any difference. Both groups see the same event. It’s obvious that Timberlake did it, even if it wasn’t what he meant to do. It wasn’t spontaneous bodice combustion. The second description doesn’t say that hedidn’t这样做。这就像里根总统在谈到伊朗门事件时说，“我们犯了错误”。如果犯了错，肯定是有人犯的。如果紧身胸衣破了，肯定是有人撕的。But whatshouldhappen, isn’t whatactuallyhappens. In fact,the first group is much more likely to assign responsibility and level a fine, and a large one at that.

What’s more, there are differences between languages on this. Suppose we're eyewitnesses who think the bodice-tearing was unintentional and accidental -- a true wardrobe malfunction, as Timberlake put it. In that case, either description is still OK, at least in English --- the one where Timberlakehimselfunfastened a snap and tore the bodice --- or the one wherethe snapunfastened andthe bodicetore. But in Spanish, the eyewitness who thinks it was an accident is much more likely to use a reflexive verb that avoids giving responsibility.

这一点很重要，因为这种影响会延续到记忆中。通常，我们描述事物的方式会影响我们对它们的记忆编码的方式。当我们记住被动描述的事件时，我们就不太善于记住谁是罪魁祸首。And people whose language prefers reflexive verbs, like Spanish, arelesslikely to recall the responsible parties.

We’ll be talking with one of our favorite guests, Lera Boroditsky from Stanford’s Psychology Department. Being a psychologist, Lera can prove these effects with many experiments, lot of graphs, statistics, and all sorts of things like that. But I need to say a little about why it’s philosophically interesting. For one thing, language seems to affect how we think of events, even when we're eye-witnesses. For another, given the way our descriptions of action, agency and responsibility vary across languages and cultures, perhaps the the conception of responsibility does too. Who knows, maybe Puritanism can be traced to the way English lets us focus on the person who does something, even when those actions are unintentional and accidental…or maybe I’m going off the deep end.