more rambling

Michael Christeen The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: Worlds Shaped by words By David S Thomson Article 12





1 The two models that are talked about are high and low codability. This relationship is used to show how strong certain ideas are within a culture based on how many terms there are in that culture to describe something. The idea behind this is that only where you have a large number of terms for an idea in a culture then people in that culture have a better understanding of what that idea is. As opposed to people having a low codability for an idea which makes it more difficult to understand. 2 Two ways that grammar shapes perceptions are color and cars. Other cultures have fewer terms for colors and see only a smaller group of colors not the traditional six or seven colors that we see in our culture. It is also true of cars in our culture, because we are around them so often we can differentiate between many different cars with relative ease. It is not to say that these other culture can’t see all the individual colors or cars but they don’t see the unique characteristics that make them up. 3 The ways in which language affects my experience are infinite. There are so many different kinds of language that are used to say things in so many different situations. I can talk to my friends, my parents, my teachers and each is in a different way and because of that the language I use affects all the situations I’m in. For each situation I have to use certain kinds language to express ideas to certain people which in turn shapes the experiences I have. So language really affects all of the experiences that I have ever had. 4 This article was a real gem it express’ an Idea that is not thought about by the vast majority. This is undoubtedly why it was written but the thing that I found the most interesting it that there is such opposition to Whorf’s idea of language. To me it does not make sense to say that language doesn’t shape your perceptions. I would say that the only thing that might be more engrained into a person is whatever they believe in their heart to be truth and even that is facilitated by language. And to say that it doesn’t at least provide a structure for thinking and people with similar structures can see things in similar ways seems strange to me.