Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
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The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, more accurately referred to as linguistic relativity, posits that the language we use can influence and even control how we see the world, the categories we make, and the associations we make about those categories.
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[edit] Weak and strong
It comes in two forms, the weak hypothesis and strong hypothesis, although this distinction originates with neither Sapir nor Whorf. The strong version states that language influences how we think and allows us particular modes of thought, creating our cognitive categories which in turn control cognitive processes. This is also referred to as linguistic determinism. The weak version states that our linguistic categories merely influence our thoughts, but do not create or control the cognitive processes, or restrict certain thoughts because the language terms do not exist (as in Newspeak). The there is no hard and fast boundary between the "weak" and "strong" versions of linguistic relativity; they merely open up debate as to the strength of the effect language has on thought processes. Most research into language disfavours the strongest formulations of the idea, and so remaining controversies are as to the scale extent that language does influence thought and whether experimental observations can be explained by other cultural factors.
[edit] Popular incarnations
The limitation of thought and action by the control of language is the principle behind George Orwell's "Newspeak." As Orwell explains in the appendix to Nineteen Eighty-Four:
“”...a heretical thought - that is, a thought diverging from the principles of IngSoc - should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.
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The principles of Newspeak relied on strong linguistic relativity, which does not have much empirical support as being the case. Concepts and thought are not controlled and limited by language, but they are influenced for instance in the naming of colours, language plays a key part in what colours people can describe in a single word and research suggests an order in which they are prioritised. All languages at least have words for "black" and "white", but purple and pink are often left indescribable until the language is given more terms to describe colours. This doesn't mean that the very concept of those distinct colours is impossible to think about, as the strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis may seem to suggest. A language can always name colors for which it lacks specific terms with compounds or words for objects bearing that color (just as crayon manufacturers come up with names like orange-red and cornflower). If existing color terms really constrained the way people view colors, these new terms could never appear.
Political correctness attempts a similar thing; by removing racist or sexist terminology from language, replacing them with less offensive terms. Not least because language can develop to fill the gap (e.g., the euphemism treadmill), politically correct terms don't succeed in eradicating racist or sexist thoughts and attitudes.
A literary example of a failed attempt at instituting a Newspeak style language is found in Gene Wolfe's book The Citadel of the Autarch, the fourth and final volume of his Book of the New Sun series. Despite the Ascian language[wp] being composed solely of quotations from approved texts by the Ascian leaders (Ascians literally cannot understand non-canonic sentences), an Ascian prisoner is still able to tell a story by creatively stringing together particular quotes.
[edit] Eskimo snow
One common and oft-repeated claim, for which the anthropologist Franz Boas is ultimately responsible, holds that the "Eskimo language" has a rich vocabulary for snow that English is supposed to lack. Boas wrote:[1]
“” Another example of the same kind, the words for SNOW in Eskimo, may be given. Here we find one word, aput, expressing SNOW ON THE GROUND; another one, qana, FALLING SNOW; a third one, piqsirpoq, DRIFTING SNOW; and a fourth one, qimuqsuq, A SNOWDRIFT.
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Part of the issue may be the nature of the Inuit-Yupik language family[wp] to which the several "Eskimo" languages belong; their polysynthetic nature turns what would be a phrase like "drifting snow" in English into a single word. And besides, who says English is poor in words for snow? Ask a skier or another winter sports aficionado. English has in fact elaborated itself a rich vocabulary for different kinds of snow, one that is similar to and might map onto the "Eskimo" classification. The critical difference is how much attention you pay to snow; or compare also the elaborate lexicon used by wine fanciers to judge the tastes they find in wines.
Linguists actually reconstruct only three root words for "snow" in the Proto-Inuit-Yupik language:[2] *qaniɣ 'falling snow', *aniɣu 'fallen snow', and *apun 'snow on the ground'. These three stems are found in all Inuit languages and dialects - except for West Greenlandic which lacks aniɣu.[3]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Entry in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Language Log: Sapir/Whorf: Sex (Pro) and Space (Anti), 100 Words for the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
- Lera Boroditsky: How Language Shapes Thought, How Does Language Shape the Way We Think?
[edit] Notes
- ↑ Franz Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man. 1911. pp. 145-146.
- ↑ Michael Fortescue, Steven Jacobson, and Lawrence Kaplan. 1993. Comparative Eskimo Dictionary with Aleut Cognates, Fairbanks, Alaska Native Language Center
- ↑ Lawrence Kaplan, 2003. Inuit Snow Terms: How Many and What Does It Mean? In: Building Capacity in Arctic Societies: Dynamics and shifting perspectives. Proceedings from the 2nd IPSSAS Seminar. Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada: May 26-June 6, 2003, ed. by François Trudel. Montreal: CIÉRA -- Faculté des sciences sociales Université Laval. http://www.uaf.edu/anlc/snow/