This link has been bookmarked by 67 people . It was first bookmarked on 27 Aug 2010, by John Skeal.
-
20 Oct 11
-
03 Jul 11
-
16 Nov 10
-
Benjamin Lee Whorf let loose an alluring idea about language’s power over the mind, and his stirring prose seduced a whole generation into believing that our mother tongue restricts what we are able to think.
-
In particular, Whorf announced, Native American languages impose on their speakers a picture of reality that is totally different from ours, so their speakers would simply not be able to understand some of our most basic concepts, like the flow of time or the distinction between objects (like “stone”) and actions (like “fall”).
- 3 more annotation(s)...
-
-
Whorf, we now know, made many mistakes.
-
SINCE THERE IS NO EVIDENCE that any language forbids its speakers to think anything, we must look in an entirely different direction to discover how our mother tongue really does shape our experience of the world.
-
“Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.” This maxim offers us the key to unlocking the real force of the mother tongue: if different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about.
-
-
-
28 Sep 10
-
15 Sep 10
Valentina Dodge"discover how our mother tongue really does shape our experience of the world."
-
14 Sep 10
-
“Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.” This maxim offers us the key to unlocking the real force of the mother tongue: if different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about.
-
-
13 Sep 10
-
09 Sep 10
Christine AlfanoA really interesting article that questions whether language differences can produce cognitive (and therefore cultural) differences.
-
07 Sep 10
electrastephWhen your language routinely obliges you to specify certain types of information, it forces you to be attentive to certain details in the world and to certain aspects of experience that speakers of other languages may not be required to think about all th
-
05 Sep 10
-
04 Sep 10
-
03 Sep 10
-
02 Sep 10
-
01 Sep 10
-
31 Aug 10
-
30 Aug 10
-
Guy FawkesSeventy years ago, in 1940, a popular science magazine published a short article that set in motion one of the trendiest intellectual fads of the 20th century. At first glance, there seemed little about the article to augur its subsequent celebrity. Neith
-
29 Aug 10
-
28 Aug 10
-
Silvia Rosenthal TolisanoLanguages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.” This maxim offers us the key to unlocking the real force of the mother tongue: if different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of wha
-
-
Seventy years ago, in 1940, a popular science magazine published a short article that set in motion one of the trendiest intellectual fads of the 20th century. At first glance, there seemed little about the article to augur its subsequent celebrity. Neither the title, “Science and Linguistics,” nor the magazine, M.I.T.’s Technology Review, was most people’s idea of glamour. And the author, a chemical engineer who worked for an insurance company and moonlighted as an anthropology lecturer at Yale University, was an unlikely candidate for international superstardom. And yet Benjamin Lee Whorf let loose an alluring idea about language’s power over the mind, and his stirring prose seduced a whole generation into believing that our mother tongue restricts what we are able to think.
-
-
27 Aug 10
-
-
Benjamin Lee Whorf let loose an alluring idea about language’s power over the mind
-
Benjamin Lee Whorf
- 5 more annotation(s)...
-
-
seduced a whole generation into believing that our mother tongue restricts what we are able to think.
-
Native American languages impose on their speakers a picture of reality that is totally different from ours, so their speakers would simply not be able to understand some of our most basic concepts, like the flow of time or the distinction between objects (like “stone”) and actions (like “fall”).
-
Eventually, Whorf’s theory crash-landed on hard facts and solid common sense, when it transpired that there had never actually been any evidence to support his fantastic claims.
-
the last few years, new research has revealed that when we learn our mother tongue, we do after all acquire certain habits of thought that shape our experience in significant and often surprising ways.
-
Whorf, we now know, made many mistakes. The most serious one was to assume that our mother tongue constrains our minds and prevents us from being able to think certain thoughts.
-
-
Would you like to comment?
Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.