Dan Budin's List: Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

• don't know if I would go so far as to agree with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. One strong example is that of babies and animals who are unable to communicate in the traditional sense, but it is certainly arguable that they are able to think for themselves. In my opinion, language is certainly a very powerful way of knowing, but I do believe there is a reality independent of language, and that language is a tool with which we use to explore, examine and discuss our thoughts and ideas.

• The most obvious problem is the idea of causality – how can one ascertain whether (if at all) language has affected thought, or if the thought has affected the language? A national ‘character’ (if such a thing truly exists) would be as much an influence on us as a national language. In the case of the Hopi and their excessive preparation – it is possible, and in fact, more likely, that they have just learnt over time that preparation makes things easier, especially in a harsh environment.
• The second most obvious criticism of Whorfianism is Benjamin Whorf’s methods. Brown (1958) and Lenneberg (1953) pointed out that Whorf never met an actual Indian, so his assessments of their character must be somewhat vague, and also that his translations of Hopi sentences were done to seem as different as possible, to emphasise the ‘different system of thinking’. One of the most fervent critics of Whorfianism (in both extreme and moderate forms) is the linguist Steven Pinker: 'No one is really sure how Whorf came up with his outlandish claims, but his limited, badly analysed sample of Hopi speech and his long-term leanings towards mysticism must have helped' (Pinker 1994). Pinker also debunks Whorf’s claims about time in the Hopi language. He points out that the anthropologist Malotki (1983) has found that the Hopi do have a concept of time very similar to ours – and in fact have units of time, and a sophisticated calendar. In addition, Whorf’s arguments on Hopi character are based on Hopi language, making his argument circular, and therefore useless.
• Another criticism of extreme Whorfianism is the concept of translatability – if language affects thought, then presumably some concepts would only be understandable in the language in which they were first ‘thought’. There is evidence that this applies in poetry – Chandler (1995) quotes the poet Pablo Neruda lamenting the fact that when his poems are translated the words do not correspond in terms of
• 'vocalization, or in the placement, or the colour, or the weight of words'. However, he does admit that the sense of what he is saying remains the same. For a poet, the meaning is only half the poem. The remaining part is in how the poet sounds to the listener, or looks to the reader. Words are therefore chosen just as much for their shape or the noise they make when uttered as their meaning. What is ‘lost in translation’ here is therefore less of a linguistic debate, and more a musical or artistic one.

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• The linguistic relativity principle, or the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis,^[1] is the idea that differences in the way languages encode cultural and cognitive categories affect the way people think, so that speakers of different languages will tend to think and behave differently depending on the language they use. The hypothesis is generally understood as having two different versions: (i) the strong version that language determines thought and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories and (ii) the weak version that linguistic categories and usage influence thought and certain kinds of non-linguistic behavior.
• Wilhelm von Humboldt who saw language as the expression of the spirit of a nation

• What are some criticisms of the hypothesis?   
   While linguists generally agree that the weaker Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, also known as linguistic relativism, can be shown to be true to some extent, there are criticisms of the stronger form of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, also known as linguistic determinism. Among the criticisms of the strong form of the Hypothesis are:
• • One of Whorf's central arguments in his paper on language determining thought was that the Hopi terminology  for time gave the Hopi a different and unique understanding of how time worked, distinct from the typical   Western conception of time. Pinker (1994) argues that Whorf had never actually met anyone from the Hopi tribe  and that a later anthropologist discovered, in fact, the Hopi conception of time was not so different from the   traditional Western understanding of it. 
   
  •   The problem of translatability: if each language had a completely distinct reality encoded within it, how could  a work be translated from one language to another? Yet, literary works, instruction manuals and so forth are   regularly translated and communication in this regard is not only possible, but happens every day.

• one of the  criticisms to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is that the theory is based on  establishing European languages as a model against which all comparisons are  made. The undertone behind this criticism is that when we examine linguistic  issues from a universal perspective, what we are actually doing is to look at  linguistic properties by a criterion of similarity and difference; hence, it is  a process of recategorization, but not by a criterion of an already established  model language. Furthermore, due to the convenience of observation and  comparison, it is suggested that when we search for LINGUISTIC UNIVERSALITY,  we'd better begin with the similarities possessed by most languages, instead of  their assumed differences (Greenberg et al. 1978).

• Even though extreme Whorfianism has been criticized, I think the general consensus is that language does have an impact on the way you think. Since his time, many people have done empirical studies and have refined his earliest claims. Some historical criticisms of pure Whorfianism are as follows:
  
  The idea of causality. Whorf claims that  language affects thought and the formation of a world-view, but he doesn't really look at the evolution of language and the impact that thought has on its development. It's possible that certain cultures think in a certain way and then develop language, as a tool, to express their perception of the world. Neither Sapir nor Whorf ever claim that language and culture are causally related, so critics who attribute casual determination to their theory are probably misguided.
  
  His methods. Eric Lenneberg, Noam Chomsky, and Steven Pinker have claimed that many of his assertions are based on anecdotal evidence and/or were speculative. He doesn't really do empirical studies or proves that his assumptions are true. Whorf draws many of his conclusions from studying the Hopi language and finding out that there's no way to indicate units of time. He then uses this observation to draw conclusions about the reasons behind certain behavior patterns or thought processes within the culture.
  
  Translation. Lenneberg also claimed that Whorf didn't actually speak Hopi, so the mere fact that certain conceptualizations had to be translated to English disproves linguistic relativity. This criticism is kind of harsh, though, because it's practically impossible for academics to actually speak and understand every language that they study. It should be enough to gain an understanding of how a certain culture thinks without actually having to think that way or speak the language.