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    The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

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    Maida Khan
    The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis proposes that the structure of a language affects its speakers' worldview or cognitive processes. Two experiments provide evidence for this. First, Navajo speakers paid more attention to object shapes than English speakers due to Navajo verbs describing handling. Second, Mayan speakers distinguished singular/plural only for animate nouns, unlike English speakers, tracking their language's rules. While language influences thought, other experiences also shape cognition, so the hypothesis is not a strict determinism.

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    The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

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    Maida Khan
    25 views2 pages
    The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis proposes that the structure of a language affects its speakers' worldview or cognitive processes. Two experiments provide evidence for this. First, Navajo speakers paid more attention to object shapes than English speakers due to Navajo verbs describing handling. Second, Mayan speakers distinguished singular/plural only for animate nouns, unlike English speakers, tracking their language's rules. While language influences thought, other experiences also shape cognition, so the hypothesis is not a strict determinism.

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    The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis proposes that the structure of a language affects its speakers' worldview or cognitive processes. Two experiments provide evidence for this. First, Navajo speakers paid more attention to object shapes than English speakers due to Navajo verbs describing handling. Second, Mayan speakers distinguished singular/plural only for animate nouns, unlike English speakers, tracking their language's rules. While language influences thought, other experiences also shape cognition, so the hypothesis is not a strict determinism.

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    The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

    Uploaded by

    Maida Khan
    The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis proposes that the structure of a language affects its speakers' worldview or cognitive processes. Two experiments provide evidence for this. First, Navajo speakers paid more attention to object shapes than English speakers due to Navajo verbs describing handling. Second, Mayan speakers distinguished singular/plural only for animate nouns, unlike English speakers, tracking their language's rules. While language influences thought, other experiences also shape cognition, so the hypothesis is not a strict determinism.

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    The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

    Introduction:

    American linguist Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf both worked on American Indian
    languages and made important contributions to linguistics theory. The clear work on hypothesis was done in
    1930s.

    Explanation:

    Here’s the quotation (1940) in which Whorf laid out his view on the relationship between language and thought:

    ‘‘…The background linguistics system of each language is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing
    ideas but rather is itself the shaper of ideas, the program and the guide for individual’s mental activity, for his
    analysis of impressions, for his synthesis of his mental stock in trade… We cut nature up and organize it into
    concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in
    this way – an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our
    language. The agreement is of course an implicit and unstated one, BUT ITS TERMS ARE ABSOLUTELY
    OBLIGATORY, we cannot talk at all except by subscribing to the organization and classification of data which
    the agreement decrees.’’

    Here Whorf is talking about how our thinking is affected by the grammar of our language. The hypothesis is
    extraordinary hard to test because neither Sapir nor Whorf ever formulated it sufficiently precisely.

    Experiments:

    A great deal of work has done, two of the most interesting projects are summarized below:

    1st Experiment:

     Carried out in 1950s by Carroll & Casagrande


     Involves a comparison of English speakers with Navajo speakers

    In Navajo, the speaker & hearer are forced by the grammar of Navajo to pay attention to the shapes of the
    objects they refer to in a way that has no parallel in English language. This is because grammar of Navajo has
    verbs of handling, which show the shape of the thing to which they are applied. To see if this has any effect on
    observable behavior, a psychological test called ‘triad sorting test’ was carried out. In this the subjects are
    shown two objects and asked to pick a 3rd object similar to that of two, either in shape or in size or color.

    In research to how children’s concepts develop, American & European psychologists discovered that shape
    developed later than size & color, but Navajo children paid attention to shape than English speakers. So these
    results suggested that grammar did indeed influence thought.

    Next step was to compare these two groups with other non-Navajo children in order to separate the effects of
    grammar from culture. Same test was applied to English speaking children in middle class Boston but in this
    case the results proved opposite. The middle class children performed in just the same way as the Navajo
    Children. On the other hand, when the test was applied to English speaking children in working class Harlem,
    they got same results as they had found for English speaking Navajo children. Results showed that effects of
    middle class upbringing are as same as those of Navajo.
    General conclusion was that grammar does influence our thinking in ways that go beyond use of language.

    Experiment 2:

     Carried out in 1992 by John Lucy


     Involves a comparison of English speakers with a community in Mexico whose language is Yucatec
    Maya.

    The work was focused on the difference of number treatment of nouns. English requires every noun to be either
    singular or plural while the marking of plurality was optional in Maya. Another difference is that Mayans
    actually use the plural with animate nouns as compared to inanimate nouns.

    Experiment involved twelve Mayan men and twelve English speaking students at Chicago University. Each
    subject did a range of tasks all connected with pictures that contained animals, instruments and substances.
    Pictures differed according to the singularity or group of things.

    Results confirmed that both the grammatical differences between Mayans and English had an effect on how
    they treated pictures. English speakers paid attention to single/group contrast. While Mayan paid attention only
    on the plurality of animates in pictures.

    Conclusion:

    There is good evidence that semantic contrasts expressed by grammar are also applied outside the language use.
    So, language does affect thought in ways that goes beyond the obvious effects of specific lexical items. On the
    other hand, it is not the only kind of experience which does affect thought, so we have moved a long way from
    the idea of ‘linguistics determinism’.

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