things that aggravate me: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis edition.
First, a funny rec to retreat to when you get bored:
Darth Vader: the musical. Andrew Lloyd Webber meets George Lucas to create sheer brilliance. If you've ever seen The Phantom of the Opera, you need to see this.
The Sapir Whorf hypothesis states generally that language determines reality. As humans, we can only perceive that which our language prepares us for. So if your language doesn't really do subjunctive clauses, then you don't understand them. The example that I am ashamed to note held acceptance is that if your language does not have words to distinguish between blue and green, then, while you can see them, it's not very easy, notable, or important. This is ridiculous. We perceive colour, those of us who can, using rods and cones and apply to everyone. Again, I have some tedious experimental data to back it up.
There is also a softer version, 'linguistic relativism', which says that we perceive things through the lens of our language. sapote3 said that the New Yorke floated the theory that math actually is easier if you were raised speaking certain languages, because the words for raising things to higher powers build more logically in some. I haven't seen that, but that would be an example. I'd probably look at that article and look at the education systems present.
I could at least understand people adhering to linguistic relativism before all of the impressive results of cognitive science. We had no other theories to explain the mind! Now we really really do. Going into those would be the subject of another post and require me digging out all of my cognitive science notes. However, I really recommend The Language Instinct, esp. the chapters 'Mentalese' and 'How Language Works' for better written descriptions of basic cognitive linguistics.
The doctrine of linguistic relativity between cultures does not maintain integrity when scrutinized. In addition to its discriminatory implications, it lacks factual support. Language does not determine thought; the causal relationship is the other way around. Insofar as thought can be influenced by external factors, it is society and socio-economic stratification that are the paramount factors.
Disturbingly, many of the examples Whorf used to support his conclusions are specious or at the least misinterpreted. Most egregiously, the assertion that the Hopi people have a different time sense, a relative one, in contrast to the western linear sense of time is deeply flawed and rejected by all those aside from Whorf who studied the Hopi. Whorf based his assertion saying that the Hopi contains no grammatical forms that refer directly to time [63]. Ekkehart Malotki, however, an anthropologist who studied the Hopi, noted that Hopi speech contains tense and units of time, including days, number of days, parts of the day, yesterday and tomorrow, days of the week, weeks, months, lunar phases, seasons, and the year", which I am taking from Pinker who quoted Ekkehart Malotki. Their culture also has exact ceremonial day sequences and several devices for timekeeping using the principal of the sundial. All of those things are exactly what a mechanical and linear sense of time consists of, which is apparently only what we've got going on. Another one of the key theories that supports linguistic relativism is demolished in Geoffrey Pullum’s essay entitled “the Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax”. The Inuit do not have a large number of words for snow. Actually, saying that is like saying, ‘Europeans have a large number of words for snow’. Aside from that ridiculousness even choosing one arctic language does not reveal a larger number of words for snow than is evidenced in English. I have yet to be presented with a truthful example to prove that speakers of different languages fundamentally experience reality differently.
Aside from the shaky reasoning, I have a great difficulty accepting the views of Sapir-Whorf. Their hypothesis smacks of the scientific racism of the 18th and 19th centuries. For if we can only perceive that which our language has vocabulary to cover, how could speakers of a language that lacked scientific terminology adapt to the modern world? Language differences could be used to justify a second class position for many people.
Of course, there is an easy solution for missing words. In English, when we don’t have a word for a useful concept, we borrow it. For instance, when ‘tidal wave’ was considered insufficient ‘tsunami’ was borrowed from Japanese. English is rife with borrowed words; we wear the history of our conquests on our skin. Norse words like ‘skirt’ that came with the Vikings, French words like ‘medicine’ assimilated with the Normans, words from Latin like ‘candle’, and ‘lens’ which were borrowed in waves as new trends of thought rolled into the British isles from Europe, primarily with the Catholic church and with the Renaissance. Every language cross-pollinates. How could it be that we lack the capacity to experience outside of the framework of our language when we can clearly recognize the gaps and fill them as needed? It is not true that certain concept can only be expressed in certain languages. Anyone could know what ‘schadenfreude’ was after watching a rival trip and fall on their face without having a term for it. The feeling is familiar. Thought transcends language. There are things, too, which are not contained in our language. Often, to explain a concept we resort to complicated metaphors.
I can accept that the metaphors we choose to use influence the way we view the world extensively. It probably says something about our culture and our obsession with commerce that time is such a commodity, i.e. we spend it, save it, waste it, and make it, and so on. In metaphor, a weaker form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holds credence. Metaphors, similes, and the like, however, are not uniform across a language. They are regional or dialectal; they don’t apply everywhere or to everyone. Cockney rhyming slang, though English does not translate outside of outside of London. The variation poses another problem for the theory that language is the determiner, since it seems that society is truly the unit that affects language, not the other way around. If language is redefined as the use of language, however, then it is easy to see how our associations influence our conclusions about the universe, but it always must be restricted by location and culture.
It would be a mistake to overestimate the influence these metaphors have over the mind, though. Employing the idiom ‘by and large’, where ‘by’ means into the wind and ‘large’ means with the wind, does not entail that the speaker is particularly nautically minded. Even that idiom has shifted meaning from ‘in all conditions’ to ‘for the most part’ as the need shifted. That is another case of societal consensus determining meaning, not meaning determining society.
Thought is independent of language. Differences in language do not create differences in perceiving the world. Therefore, any and all such differences that exist between cultures must arise from society and its construction. Linguistic relativity creates the Other where none need exist. This need not happen, since there is no proof to support that language does act as a thought controlling agent and there is overwhelming evidence to contradict it.
You can definitely use language to manipulate though. I mean, look at propaganda. Or Propaganda. The people who control the language used can definitely skew the available information to their benefit in deep, insidious, and disturbing ways. But they can't control thought, only manipulate it. Every once in a while we get one of those break throughs that change the entire discourse, like with Orientalism and Edward Said. The fact he was able to write it shows that the chokehold is not absolute.
Darth Vader: the musical. Andrew Lloyd Webber meets George Lucas to create sheer brilliance. If you've ever seen The Phantom of the Opera, you need to see this.
The Sapir Whorf hypothesis states generally that language determines reality. As humans, we can only perceive that which our language prepares us for. So if your language doesn't really do subjunctive clauses, then you don't understand them. The example that I am ashamed to note held acceptance is that if your language does not have words to distinguish between blue and green, then, while you can see them, it's not very easy, notable, or important. This is ridiculous. We perceive colour, those of us who can, using rods and cones and apply to everyone. Again, I have some tedious experimental data to back it up.
There is also a softer version, 'linguistic relativism', which says that we perceive things through the lens of our language. sapote3 said that the New Yorke floated the theory that math actually is easier if you were raised speaking certain languages, because the words for raising things to higher powers build more logically in some. I haven't seen that, but that would be an example. I'd probably look at that article and look at the education systems present.
I could at least understand people adhering to linguistic relativism before all of the impressive results of cognitive science. We had no other theories to explain the mind! Now we really really do. Going into those would be the subject of another post and require me digging out all of my cognitive science notes. However, I really recommend The Language Instinct, esp. the chapters 'Mentalese' and 'How Language Works' for better written descriptions of basic cognitive linguistics.
The doctrine of linguistic relativity between cultures does not maintain integrity when scrutinized. In addition to its discriminatory implications, it lacks factual support. Language does not determine thought; the causal relationship is the other way around. Insofar as thought can be influenced by external factors, it is society and socio-economic stratification that are the paramount factors.
Disturbingly, many of the examples Whorf used to support his conclusions are specious or at the least misinterpreted. Most egregiously, the assertion that the Hopi people have a different time sense, a relative one, in contrast to the western linear sense of time is deeply flawed and rejected by all those aside from Whorf who studied the Hopi. Whorf based his assertion saying that the Hopi contains no grammatical forms that refer directly to time [63]. Ekkehart Malotki, however, an anthropologist who studied the Hopi, noted that Hopi speech contains tense and units of time, including days, number of days, parts of the day, yesterday and tomorrow, days of the week, weeks, months, lunar phases, seasons, and the year", which I am taking from Pinker who quoted Ekkehart Malotki. Their culture also has exact ceremonial day sequences and several devices for timekeeping using the principal of the sundial. All of those things are exactly what a mechanical and linear sense of time consists of, which is apparently only what we've got going on. Another one of the key theories that supports linguistic relativism is demolished in Geoffrey Pullum’s essay entitled “the Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax”. The Inuit do not have a large number of words for snow. Actually, saying that is like saying, ‘Europeans have a large number of words for snow’. Aside from that ridiculousness even choosing one arctic language does not reveal a larger number of words for snow than is evidenced in English. I have yet to be presented with a truthful example to prove that speakers of different languages fundamentally experience reality differently.
Aside from the shaky reasoning, I have a great difficulty accepting the views of Sapir-Whorf. Their hypothesis smacks of the scientific racism of the 18th and 19th centuries. For if we can only perceive that which our language has vocabulary to cover, how could speakers of a language that lacked scientific terminology adapt to the modern world? Language differences could be used to justify a second class position for many people.
Of course, there is an easy solution for missing words. In English, when we don’t have a word for a useful concept, we borrow it. For instance, when ‘tidal wave’ was considered insufficient ‘tsunami’ was borrowed from Japanese. English is rife with borrowed words; we wear the history of our conquests on our skin. Norse words like ‘skirt’ that came with the Vikings, French words like ‘medicine’ assimilated with the Normans, words from Latin like ‘candle’, and ‘lens’ which were borrowed in waves as new trends of thought rolled into the British isles from Europe, primarily with the Catholic church and with the Renaissance. Every language cross-pollinates. How could it be that we lack the capacity to experience outside of the framework of our language when we can clearly recognize the gaps and fill them as needed? It is not true that certain concept can only be expressed in certain languages. Anyone could know what ‘schadenfreude’ was after watching a rival trip and fall on their face without having a term for it. The feeling is familiar. Thought transcends language. There are things, too, which are not contained in our language. Often, to explain a concept we resort to complicated metaphors.
I can accept that the metaphors we choose to use influence the way we view the world extensively. It probably says something about our culture and our obsession with commerce that time is such a commodity, i.e. we spend it, save it, waste it, and make it, and so on. In metaphor, a weaker form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holds credence. Metaphors, similes, and the like, however, are not uniform across a language. They are regional or dialectal; they don’t apply everywhere or to everyone. Cockney rhyming slang, though English does not translate outside of outside of London. The variation poses another problem for the theory that language is the determiner, since it seems that society is truly the unit that affects language, not the other way around. If language is redefined as the use of language, however, then it is easy to see how our associations influence our conclusions about the universe, but it always must be restricted by location and culture.
It would be a mistake to overestimate the influence these metaphors have over the mind, though. Employing the idiom ‘by and large’, where ‘by’ means into the wind and ‘large’ means with the wind, does not entail that the speaker is particularly nautically minded. Even that idiom has shifted meaning from ‘in all conditions’ to ‘for the most part’ as the need shifted. That is another case of societal consensus determining meaning, not meaning determining society.
Thought is independent of language. Differences in language do not create differences in perceiving the world. Therefore, any and all such differences that exist between cultures must arise from society and its construction. Linguistic relativity creates the Other where none need exist. This need not happen, since there is no proof to support that language does act as a thought controlling agent and there is overwhelming evidence to contradict it.
You can definitely use language to manipulate though. I mean, look at propaganda. Or Propaganda. The people who control the language used can definitely skew the available information to their benefit in deep, insidious, and disturbing ways. But they can't control thought, only manipulate it. Every once in a while we get one of those break throughs that change the entire discourse, like with Orientalism and Edward Said. The fact he was able to write it shows that the chokehold is not absolute.