Linguistic Relativism and the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Language and Communication ANTH 2301 Linguistic Relativism and the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis As we've seen in earlier chapters, it was very typical for academics in the early 1900s to believe that nonWestern nations were primitive and backward, incapable of sophisticated, abstract reasoning. Franz Boas put a lot of effort into refuting these racist stereotypes and highlighting the equal sophistication of all peoples and civilizations. Edward Sapir, one of Boas's students, was especially concerned in how non-Western languages expressed abstract, sophisticated thought patterns that differed from Euro-American cognitive patterns. Benjamin Whorf, a pupil taught by Sapir, went on to develop this idea further in his own study (Ahearn 2017). What has become known as the "Sapir-Whorf" hypothesis is the outcome. According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the language you speak has an impact on your perception of reality (Lucy 2001). various languages therefore promote various ways of thinking. Linguistic relativity is based on this fundamental principle. Whorf's reasoning rested on a comparison between the Hopi language of Native Americans and what he referred to as the "Standard Average European" (SAE), a wide category that includes English among other European languages. Whorf was concerned in how distinct perspectives on time may be held by speakers of each language. Time is split into countable units in English terminology. English speakers analyse the months or years that have passed since something happened, or they discuss the seconds, minutes, or days that have passed before an occurrence. Whorf claims that Hopi people view time as an ongoing, indivisible process that is constantly in motion. Whorf maintained that these linguistic qualities substantially affected sociocultural life in each of these two contexts, and that the Hopi discourse about the flow of events in a fundamentally different way, a processual style of thinking about events that he called "eventing." Preparation, perseverance, and intensity were valued in Hopi culture, which adheres to the idea of time as a process. Euro-American society placed a strong emphasis on scheduling, accounting, and record keeping, which aligned with the SAE's depiction of time as countable units. A calendar is a useful tool for many individuals to manage their appointments, meetings, and tasks. According to Whorf, this is how we are encouraged to think about time and events by the English language: as a spatialized series of boxes that need to be filled with distinct things. It's frequently said that the "Eskimos" have 400 terms for snow in relation to the Sapir-Whorf theory. This is a false and harmful idea. The first issue is that the Inuit and Aleutian peoples to whom the name has been used view it as a pejorative one. Furthermore, the assertion proves to be false. The myth has been disproved by anthropologist Laura Martin (1986, as mentioned in Ahearn 2017), who showed that the Arctic peoples really have just two root words for snow: one for snow that is falling, and another for snow that is on the ground. They speak about snowstorms, snowflakes, snow drifts, and snow melt using these roots in a manner similar to that of English speakers. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is no longer often used to analyse vocabulary from other cultures. Remember the snake example from earlier? We proposed the theory that two kinds of snakes with similar appearances may be confused by a culture. However, a new name for the type of snake that lives in trees and has a lethal bite is probably what would happen if people gradually noticed that the innocuous snakes were always found on the ground and the dangerous snakes were always located in trees. That is to say, even if a civilization had only had one word for snakes in the past, its members might quickly realise that there were really two types and may modify their language to reflect this distinction in their vocabulary going forward. They wouldn't be so limited in their thinking by their language that they couldn't imagine there may be two types of snakes. Researchers studying linguistic relativity have shifted their attention from vocabulary terms to more abstract concepts like space. People most often utilise language centred on their own bodies in languages like English when they wish to inform someone where an object is. "Grab the pink top hat on the shelf above you," or "You have a bit of rocket on the left side of your mouth," are phrases used by English speakers. This mode of communication is related to the bodies of the speaker and/or listener because it uses the human body as a point of reference. When the speaker is facing the person they are speaking to, this causes misunderstanding and occasionally leads to the response "No, my left, not your left!" Research on languages that don't involve the human body at all to convey direction has been done by Steven Levinson (2003). Rather, they describe locations using the cardinal directions (north, south, east, and west) and certain elements of their surroundings (oceans, mountains). "Beware of the snake just north of your foot!" is what someone speaking Guugu Yimithirr, an indigenous language of Australia, may say. This is an absolute, not relative, approach of discussing space. Since there is only one absolute north, such speakers never have to respond, "No, my north, not your north." According to research, these various methods of calculation offer us distinct mental maps. For example, a speaker of Guugu Yimithirr may be more skilled in absolute navigation than an English speaker, and she may also be more good at retracing her steps if she gets lost.