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The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is one of the most hotly-debated topics among linguists. This hypothesis states that our perception is affected by our language system. There are several pieces of evidence that prove the veracity of this hypothesis.
Whorf insists that the Eskimo language has many more words to describe the word “ snow" than English does. This, according to Whorf, is because snow is a much more vital part of the Eskimos' lives than of English people’s lives. For instance, people in England use the word “ snow" to describe falling snow, slushy snow, snow on the ground, and so on. Discerning between types of snow is not very important in England. However, in the Eskimo language , there are about fifty, some say one hundred, words to describe various types of snow.
Also, Whorf argued that the Hopi people, who lack the concept of tense in their language system, also lack a sense of time. Whorf realized how important the concept of time is in European physics, where there can be no velocity or acceleration without a temporal concept. Thus, he was able to theorize what Hopi physics might look like. He c1aimed it would be completely different from English physics, which involves the concept of time.
Finally, Levinson’s experiment on the Trejapans and Dutch proves that language could affect at least some part of perception - frame of reference. The researcher found that the Trejapans who only use absolute frames of reference in their language use absolute frames of reference for non-linguistic purposes as well. At the same time, Dutch speakers who use non-absolute frames of reference in their language prefer the same in non-linguistic purposes.
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Hello everyone. Today, we are going to talk about the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. This has been one of the hottest topics in linguistics, and, therefore, many experiments have been done to prove this hypothesis. However, almost every single one of these experiments has failed to convince me to believe in this hypothesis, and neither has the article which we read.
The difference between English and the Eskimo language mentioned in the first research cited, the snow study, is not as dramatic as it sounds. Further research has found that there are actually only about ten to twenty words to describe snow in the Eskimo language. In fact, although the article has failed to point it out, in English there are quite a few words to describe snow - snow, slush, ice, sleet, powder, fluff, blizzard, etc. In other words, despite the greater importance of snow in the Eskimos' lives than in other people’s lives, there is not a fundamental difference in their languages.
Also, the Hopi’s language does include ways to explain timing. Some linguists argue that although the Hopi’s may not have tenses, they still use phrases like “early in the morning" and “at the hour when people pray." In other words, even if the grammar of a given language doesn’t distinguish between two objects, the language may have other means to differentiate the two
Finally, some linguists argue that Levinson’s experiment was not conducted properly. For instance, Gleitman and Li argue that Levinson ’s experiment included two variables simultaneously (environment and language). When the new experimenters controlled the variables, they found that English speakers (non-absolute reference speakers) also use absolute frames of references when a sufficiently salient fixed point of reference was provided. The fact that the controlled experiment produced different results makes the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis less convincing |