Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Inspired by a recent Cracked article

I had thought that the Sapir-Whorf theory had little credibility before this article, and that is not to say this article added credibility itself, but it brought the theory back to my attention.

Does language really affect the way we think? A little? A lot?

What do you think?

edited 2nd Nov '10 12:45:24 PM by ViralLamb

Power corrupts. Knowledge is Power. Study hard. Be evil.

I believe (tricky word there) that, from an ontological perspective, all human consciousness is framed in terms of language, and that language therefore is an indelible foundation structure for how we perceive reality. Whatever may lie beyond language is inaccessible to us consciously, because any attempt to describe or communicate it is necessarily framed in language.

So, basically I agree with the hypothesis, although I'd probably err more towards the weak side in that there are more fundamental forces also at work, such as instinct and evolutionary psychology. We're wired for language, but it sits on top of a lot of older cruft, and children clearly develop personalities before they express language.

edited 2nd Nov '10 12:53:56 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Agreed.

This is the fuel for my conlang interest it seems.

Power corrupts. Knowledge is Power. Study hard. Be evil.

You lost me with "Cracked article".

Now if you excuse me, Starfleet is about to award the Christopher Pike Medal to my dick. — SF Debris

Recently I've been thinking that it applies in programming languages. Natural languages, I don't know, and they have mostly the same concepts, so.

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There is a section on the wiki link provided in the OP that talks about that.

I don't know anything about programming languages however, so I couldn't appreciate it.

Power corrupts. Knowledge is Power. Study hard. Be evil.

Ah. I have been reading Paul Graham recently, that's probably why I posted that.

But as an anecdotal example, there's no way that I could even really understand what currying was until trying a language with currying in it.

Hm... Ruby's inspired by Babel-17, of which I like the author... might have to check that out.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

I think we've got a trope on it. Let me think... I believe it's linked on Newspeak.

Fight smart, not fair.

Language Equals Thought.

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I wonder if the Japanese are polite due to their language, or vice versa.

...Ignoring customs, of course.

Half-Life: Dual Nature, a crossover story of reasonably sized proportions.

'...Ignoring customs, of course.''

Really we can't but, language is of it's self a custom.

hashtagsarestupid

More to the point, customs are embedded in language. Can't separate them.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Correction: all human consciousness can be framed in terms of language, or to put it better, language can adjust with new terms and usages to frame any aspect of human consciousness. That doesn't mean that all human consciousness is derived from the words we would use to describe it. A lot of our mental processing is ineffable, arational, and subcognitive.

But that's just the start to a lot of reasons I believe the Whorf hypothesis is bunk. Try a third cause explanation: language adapts to circumstances...just like our ways of thinking! If you stuck an English speaking community in total isolation up in the Canadian north for enough generations, I'm sure their lexicon for the types and nature of snow would be just as rich as Inuktituk's (hell, I'm not even sure Inuktituk has as many words for snow as it's reputed to; have read that particular datum is a myth).

edited 2nd Nov '10 4:30:38 PM by RadicalTaoist

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Once you acquire language, you cannot describe or even access your own experiences except within that framework. Language encompasses the entire context within which you make distinctions that define your reality.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Must be why predicate logic caught on.

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Sorry, Fighteer, but you're just wrong. I have many wordless experiences, ones for which I could try to describe using language, but only at a loss of intrinsic information. Unless you are using the word 'language' more broadly than I think you are.

"A strong version of the hypothesis holds that language determines thought and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories. A weaker version states that linguistic categories and usage influence thought and certain kinds of non-linguistic behaviour."

Pretty clearly the weaker version wins, I think.

So, if we could empathically talk to an infant, what would they "say"? Would it just be a bunch of colors and smells and feelings and such?

I had an idea for an empath that can do a mind-meld type thing with animals, and was actually wondering how that would work.

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

I'm not sure having subtler ways to be rude really constitutes politeness.

I don't think that we can know that, yet, at least.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

I think I know the PG essay you're referring to.

The Philosopher-King Paradox

@De Marquis: You just used language to describe those things to me. You conceptualize them in terms of language. It's inescapable.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I've written probably four or five essays on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and while I'm tempted to go into great detail on the strong and weak components of this theory, I think Fighteer's responses are more or less the most sufficient, even if I don't entirely agree.

I wouldn't flat-out say that anyone in this debate is right or wrong, and there's a good reason why. We still don't fully understand the extent and nature of human cognition, nor do we fully understand the inner workings of the association of ideas and concepts. This is an issue that was talked about previously in our thread on language death. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is, in many ways, a corollary to scholarly notions as to why a universal language would not be feasible.

There are many dichotomies and inconsistencies to be found in the human mind's interpretation of conceptional definitions, subject-object relationships, and prototypical definitions. I personally adhere to the weaker version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in that it explains the psychological and empirical connection between the mind and the physical environment without fully explicating how the human mind establishes concepts, archetypes, and conceptual metaphors in a universal and holistic sense. There are fundamental and absolute qualities to the cultivation of language that all human possess, but we don't understand the reach and depth of these qualities insofar as such is reflected through cultural relativism.

Two books you guys might want to check out are "Metaphors We Live By" by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, and "Philosophy of Language: The Big Questions". Jerry Fodor and Ruth Millikan have some interesting articles on whether or not language is public or private, a debate that ties into the validity of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Check them out when you get the chance. And of course, there's Noam Chomsky, who has written some impressive dissertations on relativity and elemental qualities in language.

You lost me in the third paragraph but thanks for bringing your knowledge to the discussion. I was hoping you'd weigh in on this topic.

Power corrupts. Knowledge is Power. Study hard. Be evil.

Yes, because we're talking to each other. You can't escape language while talking to someone, that's pretty obvious. That doesn't mean every bit of information we can describe with language is actually conveyed in language; the description isn't the data.

This especially holds true for procedural knowledge. Case in point: the useless statements well-meaning parents make to their kids when Junior's trying out his first bike! "Keep your balance! Stay on the seat!" How much did that help? Junior doesn't get it until he gets it. If it was just that easy to tell people how to do stuff, we wouldn't need Nicoderm gum as I could tell cigarette addicts "Don't light up another cigarette" and it'd be all they need to stop smoking.

I can get behind the weak form of the hypothesis, but it's kind of trivial, really.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

It is. Well, depending on how you count words. If you think "window" and "windows" makes two different words, then maybe it's not a myth.

They have two words, one for snow that falls, and one for snow that lies on the ground, the rest are postfix modifiers on those two words.

On the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis itself, I consider the strong form at least to be wrong. Don't know if you guys are multilingual, but it often happens to me that I have a concept in mind, and due to the language I'm currently using, I can't find a word for it - and I don't switch to another language that I know where I could find a word for it. So "knowing a concept without knowing the word" is very common for me, so from my own experience I'll consider the strong form as disproven.

Pour y voir clair, il suffit souvent de changer la direction de son regard www.xkcd.com/386/