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3.1. Linguistic Relativity: Chapter No. 03
3.1. Linguistic Relativity: Chapter No. 03
Linguistic Relativity
Chapter No. 03 Context and Reference
Semantics: Frank Palmer
Why should we care?
Imagine a life without language…
How would our lives be different?
Thought Language
PLATO
Linguistic relativity: = Sapir–Whorf hypothesis
Palmer:
• Relating language to the external world – Difficult => the way we see the
world depends to some extent on the language we use.
• We categorize the objects of our experience with the aid of language –
thus, it may be the case that learning about the world and learning about
language are activities that cannot be separated and that therefore our
world is partly determined by our language.
Malinowski:
• Argued that primitive people have names only for those things that stand
out for them from an otherwise "undifferentiated“ world - those that are
relevant to them.
Linguistic relativity: = Sapir–Whorf hypothesis
STRONG VERSION
• The strong version says that language determines thought, and that
linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories
WEAK VERSION
• The weak version says that linguistic categories and usage
only influence thought and decisions.
Linguistic relativity: = Sapir–Whorf hypothesis
Whorf:
• Unawareness of the background character of our language , just as we are
unaware of the presence of air until we begin to choke.
• This led him to a "new principle of relativity which holds that all observers
are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the
universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar or in some way can
be calibrated." [1956:214, article "Science and linguistics"]
Linguistic relativity:
Whorf (1956) in ‘Science and Linguistics’: Evidences of several kind for his view
i. No division in reality correspondence to English Nouns and Verbs
Why do we use Nouns for: Lightening, spark, wave, eddy, pulsation,
flame, storm, phase, cycle, spasm, noise, emotion?
ii. In Hopi language, An American Indian language, all events of brief
duration (mostly included in the English nouns above)are represented by
verbs.
iii. In another American Indian, there is no noun/ verb distinction at all; instead
of ‘there is a house’ the form is (It translation) ‘a house occurs’ or better ‘It
houses’
Linguistic relativity:
IV. Hopi – there is one word (masa'ytaka) for everything that flies except
birds – which would include insects, aeroplanes and pilots.
V. Eskimo – many words for snow:
'snow (in general)' aput 'soft deep snow' mauja
'snow (like salt)' pukak 'soft snow' massak
'snowdrift' tipvigut 'watery snow mangokpok
'snow filled with water‘ massalerauvok 'soft snow' akkilokipok
• In Urdu & Pashto – one word for ice & Snow ‘Baraf”
• ‘Tum & Aap’ vs ‘You’ & Plural forms for respect
IV. Hopi – No notion of time as it does not have tenses.
• The distinction of tenses is marked by what is subjective and objective.
• Subjective includes: Future and everything ‘mental’
• Moreover, no distinction is made between distance in time and distance
in place (NO Chronological and Spatial features).
Linguistic relativity: Palmer’s Criticism
Palmer:
• It is not clear whether Sapir & Whorf thought that the ‘shape’ of our world was
totally determined by our language. i.e:
Without language it has no shape at all??
• Such an extreme interpretation is untenable for the same kind of reasons as in
the Nominalist view of words as mere names of things.
• Classification of experience must be based on some language-independent
characteristic of that experience.
• Thus, in some sense there is a world that we must share irrespective of the
language we use.
• In addition, unless there is some recognizable non-linguistic world of
experience - it is difficult to perceive how we could either learn a new
language or use it with others consistently.
Linguistic relativity: Palmer’s Criticism
• Palmer: Whorf’s argument are not wholly convincing
If we don’t have the ‘same picture of the universe’ wholly or partially – How
translation is made from one language to another??
• What about English then?? Only two tenses: Past & Present
Linguistic relativity: Palmer’s Criticism
Can we say?? - English too has no concept of time if the definition of tense is
made in the light of forms of the verbs (we’ve got present and past – all the
other tenses involve the use of auxiliary verbs) e.g.:
Joos (1964): English does not have a past tense but a remote tense to indicate
what is remote in time and remote in reality.
Although, it may not be true that language actually determines our world, at
least it is difficult to distinguish ‘what is in language’ and ‘what is in world’?
Age Distinction – are far less objectively: Alongside calf, foal (a young horse or
donkey), lamb – heifer (a young cow), steer (a castrated bull), colt (a young male horse),
filly (a young female horse), teg (2 years old sheep) as well as the adult names are
found. Such distinction can hardly be said to exist in the world.