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Words Affect Our Reality - On The Right
The Whorf hypothesis claims that one's native language influences perception and thought. Researchers at UC-Berkeley and U-Chicago reasoned that, since language is predominantly processed in the left hemisphere of the brain, any effect on perception should have an effect predominantly on the right visual field, which is also processed on the left. After comparing reaction times for hues of blue-green -- colors with distinct names in one language but not another -- they concluded, in a just-published paper, that the Whorf hypothesis holds for the right visual field, but not the left.
It's actually called the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, because it was primarily Edward Sapir's work.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Of course, some of us have heard that this "large number of words for snow" story is somewhat misleading.
Yes, Steven Pinker is excellent on this. The other example I remember him pointing is the German word Schadenfreude (the malicious satisfaction obtained from the misfortune of others). There is no Engligh word for that, but that doesn't mean English speakers don't know what that is or have no feelings like that. If you find and English speaker who doesn't know what Schadenfreude means, and you tell them, a likely response might be - "Cool, there's actually a word for that?!"
Something like this was in the novella Gulf, by Robert Heinlein.
Not to spoil anything, but superintelligent people were learned and used a language that was much more compact, expressive, nuanced, and abstract than previously, so they could communicate faster and with more precision, as well as think more quickly and more abstractly.
I did a little reading in some of my old textbooks and online, and what I come away with is that the Sapir-Whorf view is comprised of two things:
Linguistic determinism:
* strong: language is thought; equal to von Humboldt's world-view/Weltanschauung hypothesis, which predated the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
* weak: language determines/influences thought; more in line with the Boas/Sapir/Whorf view; this was opposed by what Whorf called the "natural logic" view that language was used to express nonlinguistic thought: "thought does not depend on grammar but on laws of logic or reason which are supposed to be the same for all observers of the universe"
Linguistic relativity:
* distinctions encoded in one language are unique to that language; "We cut nature up, organise it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language" (Whorf)
None of the (limited) writings of Whorf's that I've read imply that our thoughts are bounded solely by the words we have, let alone those that we choose to speak (as would be the case in the example where if we say something, we believe it).
And the barrel story you point out sounds like something I came across on wikipedia: "Some of Whorf's early work on linguistics and particularly on linguistic relativity was inspired by the reports he wrote on insurance losses, where misunderstanding had been a cause. In one famous example, an employee who was not a native speaker of English had placed drums of liquid near a heater, believing that as a 'flammable' liquid would burn then a 'highly inflammable' one would not."
Now, I haven't read all of the works of Sapir and Whorf, so I could be wrong here, but I think you've been misinformed about the nature of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
"What I think Whorf was trying to say is that words are the way our minds can express and understand concepts. If we don't have a word, but we can express a concept in a language, then the language we use doesn't limit us."
You are right on both counts. What you are missing is that Whorf disagrees with your second sentence -- Whorf would say that language *limits* our expressive ability. Most linguists would argue that language *enables* expression. If there is a concept that we don't have a word or phrase for, we can build it out of lanauge. That's the critical difference. Whorf would have you believe that if it isn't in the dictionary, you aren't aware of it.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Disclaimer: I am really an expert in spatial cognition, yadda-yadda yadda, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
;)
The easy question first:
> describe their orientation as upwards, downwards, etc
> Got any info on that?
I think Stephen C. Levinson (perhaps with Penelope Brown) working on Tenejapa Tzeltal argued that there is only the Uphill/Downhill/Side in that language. This seems to be specific to the Tenejapa variant, presumably having something to do with the locale there. I've been working on Petalcingo Tzeltal and have not come across this, but that may not mean much - I really did not investigate it, it is too complicated
> What if you ask the absolute direction-language guy,
> With which hand do you throw a spear?"?
Hmmmm... I don't _really_ know, but I could speculate. If the language really only has cardinal reference, then possible answers might be "THIS hand" (if the interlocutor is visible) and "The one currently north/south and I am facing east/west" though this last one seems silly. There is an interesting typological question as to whether there are ANY languages that have ONLY cardinal reference and nothing else - I really don't know the answer, but it seems unlikely. I think usually there are different modalities available for different tasks: absolute for open spaces and large distances, perhaps relative or body-part analogy ("the coke bottle is at the foot of the table") for proximate locations. So my coke bottle example in a previous post is a bit unfortunate in that respect - perhaps a house and a tree would be better.
So clearly there are languages where the cardinal reference is PRIMARY (at least for certain tasks), but that is different.
And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another -Hesse
Attention: After writing this I realize that this may well be the nerdiest post ever, but on the other hand I feel that it'd be a shame to let it go to waste...
Whorf actually said that the structure of ones native language would strongly affect or fully determine the world-view an individual gains when acquiring language. This is what is widely regarded as linguistic determinism in linguistics today.
Whorf also put forward a less extreme claim, namely that difference in the structure of two languages would generally go hand in hand with differences in non-linguistic cognitive processes in the native speakers of the two languages. This is what is generally regarded as linguistic relativity.
It's important to note the emphasis on "structure", since the Whorfian hypothesis would otherwise mean that because the Hopi have one word covering "pilot", "dragonfly" and "aeroplane" they can't distinguish between the three. (Obviously ridiculous.)
Ironically enough, Paul Kay (who co-authored the article in PNAS) was 50% of the infamous universalist duo that wrote Basic Color Terms (1969) --- the other 50% was Brent Berlin --- in which they argued for a universal categorization in the color domain, but lately he's been moving more and more towards a relativist stand-point.
Kay (along with Willett Kempton) was involved in a similar experiment (the one briefly mentioned on the U-Chicago website) in 1984, where they conducted it as a triad experiment. Three color chips were presented to the subject and s/he had to pick the "odd one out". They used Tarahumara (Uto-Aztecan) speakers and English speakers as subjects. Tarahumara does not make the same distinction between "green" and "blue" as English does, but use one word covering the whole spectrum instead. The colors presented to the subject would be close to where the distinction between "blue" and "green" is made in English, but the two colors closest to each other was not always on each side of the "border". (A is called "green", B is called "green" and C is called "blue", but A and C might be closer in terms of wave-length.)
The results came out that the English speaker used a naming strategy when picking the odd one out, whereas the Tarahumara speakers did not, they picked it in terms of wavelength (as expected). That was definitely strong evidence for linguistic relativity. I hope this new experiment is as well-conducted and thought out.
The text on the U-Chicago website states that "Language appears to sharpen visual distinctions in the right visual field, and not in the left visual field", however, I would think that "sharpen" is a bad choice of words and I hope that's not what is meant. Language cannot "sharpen" the distinctions between colors, it can only set up some sort of categorization (as Kay & Kempton described in 1984) and perhaps deceive our brain in various ways. The distinction must still be based primarilly in physiological conditions (color receptors in the eye etc...).
If you're interested in this subject, I suggest you check out the following:
Berlin, B. & Kay, P., 1969. Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution.
Davidoff, J., 1997. The Neuropsychology of Color. In Hardin, C. & Maffi, L. (eds.), Color Categories in Thought and Language.
Davidoff, J., 2001. Language and perceptual categories. Trends in Cognitive Science 5:382-87.
Davidoff, J., 2004. Coloured Thinking. Psychologist 17:570-72.
Kay, P. & Kempton, W., 1984. What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? American Anthropologist 86:65-79.
Kay, P. & McDaniel, C., 1978. The linguistic signicance of the meanings of basic color terms. Language 54:610-46.
MacLaury, R., 1992. From Brightness to Hue: An Explanatory Model of Color-category Evolution. Current Anthropology 33:137-86.
Newcomer, P. & Faris, J., 1971. Basic Color Terms. International Journal of American Linguistics 37:270-75.
And of course...
Whorf, B., 1971. Language, Thought and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf.
Ok, go ahead, mod me -1bn, karma whore. :-p
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The "midori" kanji also has Chinese-derived "roku" and "ryoku" readings which are used in some compounds, so that "light green" can be read as "asamidori" (kun) or "senryoku" (on)!