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Lanuage and thought Can two people who speak different languages
communicate? Two approaches
Translation is possible linguistic realism
Translation is essentially impossible linguistic determinism linguistic relativism
Sometimes called “Whorfian hypothesis” or “Sapir-Whorf hypothesis”
Benjamin Lee Whorf
“Every language is a vast pattern system, different from others, in which are culturally ordained the forms and categories by which the personality not only communicates, but also analyzes nature, notices or neglects types of relationships and phenomena, channels his reasoning, and builds the house of his consciousness.” —Whorf (1956: 252)
Language, behavior, and our perception of the world
Behavior What aspects of an image does my language lead me to attend to? How will the categories of my language affect the way in which I
sort objects? How will the categories of my language affect the distinctions I can
perceive, e.g., on the color spectrum? The world
We often talk about a linguistic system ‘carving up reality’. This implies that languages differ only with respect to the ways in which
they describe physical reality. But language is also used to express concepts that humans create—
concepts that might only exist within a single speech community.
Some history Franz Boas, father of American Anthropology
“grammatical meaning [can] only be understood in terms of the system of which it is part”
Edward Sapir, student of Boas “the ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously build up
on the language habits of the group.” Benjamin Lee Whorf, student of Sapir (and insurance
claims adjustor)
Whorfian hypothesis Strong version of the linguistic relativity hypothesis:
Language determines thought. Speakers of different languages see the world in different, incompatible ways, because their languages impose different conceptual structures on their experiences.
Weak version of the linguistic relativity hypothesis: Language influences thinking
Does language affect thought?
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Linguistic relativity
Lexical and syntactic differences are accompanied by non-linguistic cognitive differences.
Thus, cultural differences in thinking are accompanied by linguistic differences between cultures.
Linguistic determinism One might argue that cultural differences in thinking lead to
language differences or in a a cultural determinism for linguistic ability
Linguistic determinism is the exact reverse of this. Whorf posited that cultural thinking differences were the direct
result of differences in their languages
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis What evidence led Whorf to this conclusion?
The bulk of his evidence was drawn from cross-cultural comparisons
He studied several Native American cultures. But he also used examples drawn from his days as an
insurance investigator
“Yet the ‘empty’ drums are perhaps more dangerous (in comparison to the full drums), since they contain explosive vapor. …The word ‘empty’ is used in two linguistic patterns: (1) as a virtual synonym for ‘null and void, negative, inert,’ (2) applied in analysis of physical situations without regard to, e.g., vapor, liquid vestiges, in the container. The situation is named in one pattern (2) and the name is then ‘acted out’ in another (1), this being the general formula for the linguistic conditioning of behavior into hazardous forms.” (Whorf, 1956, p. 135)
Does language affect thought? Whorf’s famous example
“Empty gasoline drums”
Linguistic form
Does language affect thought? Whorf’s famous example
“Empty gasoline drums”
Linguistic meanings
Mental interpretations
Nonlinguistic observables
empty
Container no longer contains intended contents
drum no longer contains gasoline
gasoline drum without gasoline
null and void, negative, inert
drum is no longer dangerous; okay to smoke cigarettes
worker smokes cigarettes
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Qanuk ‘snowflake’ Qanir ’to snow’ Qanunge ‘to snow’ Qanugglir ‘to snow’ Kaneq ‘frost’
Some of the evidence: Hopi Indians have only one word to describe
everything that can fly but which is not a bird. Whorf claimed Inuit have several terms for snow
Kaner ‘be frosty’ Kanevvluk ‘fine snow’ Natquik ‘drifting snow’ Natquigte ‘for snow to drift
along the ground’ And more
However, there are many different Inuit languages and not all posses the same number of terms.
Boas (1911) reported one group with four root terms. This number is probably matched or surpassed by skiers
regardless of their language. See Pullum’s Great Eskimo Hoax (1991)
Some of the evidence: Hopi Indians have only one word to describe
everything that can fly but which is not a bird. Whorf claimed Inuit have seven terms for snow
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Specialization based on experience Different groups within a culture vary in terms of the
number of words they use for things Consider memory
Most people are aware of two kinds of memory, short term and long term.
As we discovered previously cognitive psychologists have many terms: Sensory registers, Iconic and echoic, short-term or working or primary memory, long-term, verbal and imagistic, declarative, procedural, and episodic.
It would be fair to say that the layman and the cognitive psychologist think differently about memory.
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Testing the theory Two major approaches have been employed to
test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Test the strong view – language determines thought
by seeing if the cognitive system can make distinctions that are not linguistically represented
Test a weaker view – that language influences thought.
Cultural Variations Much of the initial research focused on an
aspect of language which varies widely across cultures Color Terms
There are a few languages which have only two color terms, and some with three.
Most languages draw their color names from 11 specific colors.
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Color Terms Berlin and Kay (1969): Color hierarchy
In 2 color term languages the terms correspond to Black & White
In 3 color term languages they correspond to Black, White & Red
Languages with additional terms items are added as follows: yellow, green, blue then brown, then purple, pink, orange, and gray.
This data runs contrary to Whorf’s hypotheses They suggest a universal physiological basis for color
naming
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Color Terms So do naming practices influence our ability
to distinguish or remember colors? Brown & Lenneberg, 1954
The process of naming in this manner is known as codability.
Codability = how easily a concept can be described in a language, related to the length of the word.
Describe the study and findings (pg 383)
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Hieder (1972) (Rosch, 1973[same person]) Dani tribe of New Guinea use only two color names They had no difficulty in recognizing color chips that
were from an initial presentation from among distractors even though they had no names for the colors.
Additionally, they were better at recognizing focal colors (e.g., the best example of blue) than non-focal colors (just as we English speakers are)
This data does not support the strong view of Whorf’s hypothesis.
Color TermsQuickTime™ and a
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Comparative judgements among colors are affected by color naming practices
Kay & Kempton, (1984) Investigated English and Tarahumara In Tarahumara there are no separate terms for blue and green The task was see 3 chips pick the one least similar in color
Some trials had chips English speakers would call C1 green, C2 blue and C3 was a focal example of green but farther away in light spectrum from C1 than was the case for C1 vs. C2
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Color Terms
Kay & Kempton, (1984) Results Predictions: Visual stimuli as only basis pick C3 as odd Naming practices influence pick C2 as odd Tarahumara speakers pick C3 English speakers tended to pick the chip they would label blue
(C2) even though in the spectrum it was closer to C1 than was C3
Support for a weak version of the Whorfian hypothesis
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Color Terms
Higher Cognitive Processes Color naming is not a very complex cognitive
process: What about more complex mental processes?
Counting and other Arithmetic processes Reasoning
Probably will run out of time here, skip to a short summary slide for these and the conclusions
Counting & Arithmetic Greenberg (1978) has identified some cultures where
the only number terms correspond to one, two, many. In such cultures there is obviously a limit to counting
progression and comparing the size of different sets of items
Different languages terms for numbers also has effects on arithmetic
Counting & Arithmetic The greater regularity of number names in Chinese,
Japanese and Korean as compared to English or French facilitates the learning of counting behavior beyond 10 in those languages.
Another advantage is earlier mastery of ‘place value’ (understanding that in # 23 there are 2 tens and 3 ones)
Reasoning In attempts to determine ability of counter-factual
reasoning different researchers have reached different conclusions.
The basis for their differing conclusions is centered on the equivalence of the statements translation from one language to another
This problem was avoided by Hoffman, Lau & Johnson(1986) in a study of codability of personality descriptions
Reasoning In English the term artistic also conveys the notion
that a person is intense, moody, and unconventional In Chinese the term Shi Gu conveys that a person is
worldly, reserved, social adept, and devoted to family Neither language has a corresponding term for
artistic or Shi gu
Reasoning In the study the terms and their the list of traits were
presented for both terms in Chinese or in English They then wrote an impression of the person and
answered questions requiring inferences of character and behavior
The interesting result is that in both languages when a global term was available they tended to elaborate on the term with stereotypical traits.
When the global term was not available descriptions adhered more closely to listed traits.
These results hold for bilingual speakers (Hoffman et. al., 1986)
This indicates we are most likely to judge people in term of a category or stereotype if that category is easily coded in our language
Reasoning
Conclusions At this point it is apparent that the strong view
of Whorf’s hypothesis is not supported. The data from areas of investigation concerning color
naming, counting & arithmetic, reasoning, visual memory, and other areas (e.g., social inference) indicate that the use of certain specific terms can influence how we think The question that remains is how much of the
differences are because of the language and how much due to the culture?