Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (PC) Flashcards
What is the hypothesis linked to?
Linguistic Engineering
What is said about people who speak different languages?
They perceive the world in a different way because the language they use is different and it determines the way in which they view things.
Who did Whorf study?
The Hopi Indians in North America
What was different about the Hopi’s language?
They didn’t have time divided like we do in English.
e.g. they don’t have past, present or future in their language
What did Whorf argue about Hopi’s conception?
They didn’t fully understand time as we do, their conception is different
What does the Hopi’s language involve instead?
Two other tenses:
Manifested
Becoming Manifested
What does the Manifested tense involve?
All that is and ever has been, physically
Includes senses and concrete items
What does the Becoming Manifested tense involve?
Anything which is not physical
There is no definite origin and they cannot be seen with senses
What do these two tense allow the Hopi to do?
They do allow them to express time, just not in the same way that we would recognise
What is one flaw of this hypothesis?
Whorf only visited one man from the community once. This could suggest that this way of speaking was the one man’s idiolect and not a true representation of the whole community
What helped support the hypothesis?
Other people did studies similar and found that people do think differently depending on the language used
What was the study that helped this hypothesis?
Kay and Kempton’s (1984) study of Mexican language in Tarahumara
What was the key concept of Kay and Kempton’s study?
The Mexican language only had one word for the colours “blue” and “green”, whereas English differs between the two
What did Kay and Kempton find from this variable in the two languages?
English speakers were able to differentiate better between the two colours compared to the Mexican speakers of Tarahumara.
This suggests that their knowledge of the words influenced their perception of the colour itself
What is a criticism of the hypothesis (and linguistic determinism)?
If language controlled our thoughts, language change would never happen because we would never have any new ideas or concepts.
