Lecture 17: Language and Thought

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

"Language shapes thought"

Edward Sapir: Yale linguist of 30s/40s. Claimed: Morphemes grammatically encode different notions in different languages. For example, English speakers pay attention to tense (relative timing of event and moment of speaking) in order to use the affix -ed; Wintu speakers, on the other hand, must attend to whether knowledge was obtained directly or through hearsay, in order to choose appropriate verbal suffixes.

Linguistic determinism hypothesis:

People's thoughts are determined by the categories made available by their language.

Linguistic relativism hypothesis:

Differences among languages cause differences in the thoughts of their speakers.

Quotation from Whorf...

"We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face. [...] We cut nature up, 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."

(Benjamin Lee Whorf, 1956)

Sinister Implications?

Sinister implications if true in strong sense: 1984, Newspeak

"The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc [English Socialism], but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought - that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc - should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as "This dog is free from lice" or "This field is free from weeks." It could not be used in its old sense of "politically free" or "intellectually free," since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and therefore were of necessity nameless.

 

...A person growing up with Newspeak as his sole language would no more know that equal had once had the secondary meaning of "politically equal," or that free had once meant "intellectually free," than, for instance, a person who had never heard of chess would be aware of the secondary meanings attaching to queen and rook. There would be many crimes and errors which it would be beyond his power to commit, simply because they were nameless and therefore unimaginable."

(George Orwell, "1984" (published 1948))

Questions

a. Does language affect thought?

b. Does language determine thought?

c. Does language allow sinister manipulation of thought?

d. What evidence do we have?

The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax

Are thought patterns reflected in language? ...

One of the most famous examples of different languages reflecting the different thought patterns of their speakers involves the alleged proliferation of vocabulary for talking about different forms of snow in Eskimo languages like Yupik (spoken primarily in Alaska) or Inuktitut (spoken primarily in North Central Canada). However, on closer examination it seems like there is more rumor than fact to this notion. My sources here are Geoffrey Pullum's instructive and highly entertaining essay "The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax", which appeared in the Linguistics journal Natural Language and Linguistic Theory.

1911: Franz Boas, "Handbook of North American Indians" (4 terms)

Languages can create related terms using either (a) different roots, or (b) derivations from a single root.

e.g. English terms related to water: liquid, lake, river, brook, rain, dew, wave, foam

 

e.g. Eskimo terms related to snow have 4 different roots, English equivalents are formed using single root 'snow.

 

aput, 'snow on the ground'

gana, 'falling snow'

piqsirpoq, 'drifting snow'

qimuqsuq, 'a snow drift'

 

Boas really did his homework, and he didn't mention many different terms for snow ... less than we might find in English in fact (see below). Now look how his claim has been picked up and 'liberally interpreted' by others...

1940: Benjamin Lee Whorf (at least 7 terms)

"We have the same word for falling snow, snow on the ground, snow packed like hard ice, slushy snow and wind-driven flying snow - whatever the situation may be. To an Eskimo this all-inclusive word would be almost unthinkable; he would say that falling snow, slushy snow, and so on, are sensuously and operationally different, different things to contend with; he uses different words for them and for other kinds of snow."

1975: Carol Eastman, "Aspects of Language and Culture"

"Eskimo languages have many words for snow"

1978: Lanford Wilson, "The Fifth of July": 50 terms for snow

1984: Cecil Adams, "A Compendium of Human Knowledge": 9 terms for snow

1984: New York Times editorial: 100 terms for snow

1984: Cleveland TV weather forecast: 200 terms for snow

1988: Jane Brody, New York Times: 4 dozen terms for snow and ice

English:

1. snow
2. sleet
3. slush
4. blizzard
5. avalanche
6. hail
7. hardpack
8. powder
9. florry
10. dusting

1971: Paul Gaeng, "Introduction to the principles of language"

"It is quite obvious that in the culture of the Eskimos ... snow is of great enough importance to split up the conceptual sphere that corresponds to one word and one thought in English into several distinct classes..."

Specialists closer to home... imagine the following rewording of Gaeng's observation, which we presumably wouldn't find much romantic fascination in.

"It is quite obvious that in the culture of printers ... fonts are of great enough importance to split up the conceptual sphere that corresponds to one word and one thought in non-printers into several distinct classes..."

So how many *are* there, I hear you ask. Well, it's not easy to answer, because (a) there are many different Eskimo languages, and (b) because deciding what are independent roots and what are morphologically derived words is not all that easy, but according to Pullum, who consulted Prof. Anthony Woodbury of the U. of Texas at Austin, one of the leading authorities on Central Alaskan Yupik Eskimo, this language has something on the order of a dozen independent roots for snow terms.

Names for Colors

• range of terms varies across languages

No Latin word for English 'grey' or 'brown'

Navajo collapses 'blue' and 'green' in single term

Russian has distinct words for 'dark blue' and 'sky blue'

• approximate markedness hierarchy of terms

Small number of 'basic' colors are the same across languages, e.g. if a language has a word for 'red', then speakers will agree that the best example of red is a bright red (something like the cover of Fromkin & Rodman's textbook).

 

2-color system: black, white

3-color system: black, white, red

4-color system: black, white, red, yellow or green

5-color system: black, white, red, yellow, green

6-color system: black, white, red, yellow, green, blue

...

• Even in language with very few color terms, discriminability and learnability of novel color terms is mostly as expected (Rosch)

Grand Valley Dani: group of New Guinea Highlands, two-color system (black & white).

Rosch attempted to teach the Dani new color terms: some fit a natural 3-color system, others did not. Dani were better at learning a category based on fire-engine red than on off-red.

• Color system is not determined by language so much as by the hard-wired design of eye and visual system: cones of retina: red against green, blue against yellow, black against white.

Language of Space and Direction

• What direction is Main St. from Smith Hall? [The answer is North West - how did you figure this out? Did you find it difficult? Did you answer the question by imagining a map in your head?]
• Two people standing: how can we describe how they are standing w.r.t. one another?

in front of: (relative or intrinsic)

to the left of: (relative)

to X's left: (intrinsic)

north, south, east west of: (absolute)

• 3 'frames of reference': intrinsic, absolute, relative

describing locations: describe position of figure object in terms of ground object.

 

relative: describes positions with respect to speaker; changes if speaker moves around

intrinsic: describes position of figure object with respec to some inherent property of the ground object; changes if one object moves independently of other object

e.g. houses, chairs and people have fronts, so we can use 'in front of the house/chair/person' to describe the position of an object with respect to the front-side of the house/chair/person.

absolute: w.r.t. invariant coordinate system: e.g. north, south

• English: language shows a bias for relative frame of reference.
• Tenejapan Tzeltal directions: uphill, downhill -- speakers preferentially use expressions such as these to describe spatial relations using an absolute frame of reference.

Tenejapa: community of speakers of Tzeltal in Chiapas, Mexico (south western Mexico)

Large mountainous area: many ridges and valleys

Overall fall in altitude to north-northwest

downhill ~~> north

uphill ~~> south

across ~~> east or west

 

used at all scales: in describing position of 2 cups, in describing a person behind atree, in response to a question like "where are you going?"

speakers show good 'dead reckoning', even without visual access to environment!

• Tzeltal experiment 1: recreate the arrangement of objects/animals that you saw before.

"point to the pattern you saw before"

"remake the array just as it was"

• Tzeltal experiment 2: retell a story

  e.g. story includes gestures relating to person falling over

Conclusion

Language can clearly bias what we most readily say.

Very little evidence that language determines what we are able to think.

Where there are effects of language on thought these are:

(i) limited

(ii) not open to sinister manipulation