Term Paper on "Whorfian Hypothesis"

Term Paper 12 pages (4032 words) Sources: 12

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Whorfian Hypothesis

Tis nature's work that man should utter words

But whether thus or thus, 'tis left to you

To do as seems most pleasing" (9)

Dante's Paradiso

How relevant is the Whorfian Hypothesis (WH) - also referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis - to language learning, in particular for the person who learned (or is learning) English as a second language? It is no secret that there are conflicting views on the meaning of and application of WH - and on the value of this hypothesis about language. What are some of those conflicting viewpoints that are reflected in the academic community? This paper will review the available literature on the subject and offer value judgments on the significance of WH in various applications and learning environments.

The thesis is straightforward: What was Whorf's contribution; what are scholars saying about him; and has "Whorf-hypothesis" proven realistic and effective in meaningful linguistic and cultural settings?

A.M. Halpern, "[Review of] Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf," American Sociological Review. In this article critic Halpern briefly reviews the writings of Whorf, found in the book published after Whorf's death, Language, Thought, and Reality. No matter that it is short, there is value in this critique; readers learn that Whorf's impact on American understanding of language, from the point-of-view of noted economist / engineer Stuart Chase, was equal to what Einstein accomplished in physics. And also, because of Whorf's untimely death (of cancer) at the age of forty-four, Halpern writes, some of what Whorf accomplished in anthropology and linguistics was actually unfinished scholarship, albeit his "provisional insights have been treated as definitive formulations."

Hugo a. Bedau, "[Review of] Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf," Philosophy of Science. In another but far more in-depth critique of the book published following Whorf's passing, Bedau makes a point of identifying numerous gaps and flaws in Whorf's work. But first, Bedau quotes Whorf's "most precise formulation of the linguistic relativity principle," as the late linguist / engineer preferred to call it. It follows:

All observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated" (p. 214 of Whorf's book; p. 290 of Bedau's critique). Whorf was certainly aware, Bedau continues, that he left his principle "far from adequately formulated, let along confirmed"; and further, Whorf surely understood that his hypotheses would make a substantive contribution to social science "only if further investigation showed precisely what testable hypotheses it entailed," Bedau explained. Deserving special attention from future and present day scholars is Whorf's idea of a picture of the world - what he termed "metaphysics," "thought world," "conceptual scheme" and "ideology" (pp. 58, 147, 214, 241 in Whorf's book; 291 in Bedau's critique) - as "distinct from but related to the language background, all non-verbal behavior, and the rest of a culture," Bedau continued.

And while Bedau's task here is essentially reviewing and critiquing a book published after Whorf's death, Bedau is not shy about weighing in on the validity of Whorf's hypotheses. For example, on page 291, Bedau points out that indeed Whorf has been criticized, and "often," for his attempt to use his knowledge of a linguistic background "...as a basis for inferences to the content of the correlated thought world." The problem is, Bedau goes on, "he offers no convincing examples of the inferential use of his principle"; and, Bedau adds, "it is very doubtful whether his arguments have at all established a causal relationship between language and thought worlds in the first place."

By the middle of his lengthy critique, Bedau seems to be taking the late Whorf out back to the woodshed, to use a metaphor; to wit, every argument Whorf offers "...for the linguistic relativity of some metaphysical orientation can be similarly criticized." Many of Whorf's illustrations of his principles, Bedau continues, "appear to be either irrelevant or mistaken."

Meredith M. Kimball & Philip S. Dale, "The Relationship between Color Naming and Color Recognition Abilities of Preschoolers," Child Development. The argument put forward by the WH, according to Kimball et al., is that the experiences one embraces in this world are determined by the language one speaks in this world. Given that the WH was basically formulated in 1957, and this article was published in 1972, it is altogether probable that subsequent developments have shed a brighter light on the definition and its refinements. Still, it is worth examining each scholarly article as an independent piece of work and to allow its apparent value to rise to the top or sink to the bottom based on its own merits.

The author of this piece suggests that there are, according to D. McNiell's work in 1965, three possible interpretations of WH. ONE: There is a "strong version," Kimball writes (Kimball 973), which alludes to the fact that "categories and structures of language determine thought," and this "causal relationship" does not depend on the individual actually producing language. TWO: The "weak version" of the WH is different from the strong both in point of influence and in the role of language production. Language, the weak version goes, can "influence perception, but only when the relevant linguistic labels are actually produced." THREE: In the "weakest version," according to Kimball's interpretation of McNiell, if information is expected to be stored over a period of time, the storage of it is performed by a "linguistic code" and hence, that imprint of the linguistic code is present at a later time and can be retained by the learner.

In all three versions "language touches cognition at one of three points - thought, perception, or memory," Kimball writes (973). The evidence for the strong version has not been verifiable and the evidence to support the weak version of this hypothesis has been "ambiguous." But the weakest version is supported by evidence that is indeed somewhat clearer, Kimball goes on. Studies involving both deaf and hearing children, six years old, reported that the deaf children performed "significantly worse" on a recognition task which indicated how important language really is in terms of coding (retaining) information over a period of time.

Meanwhile, Kimball et al. took that "weakest form" of the Whorfian hypothesis down the road to discovery in a research study; this test involved thirty-three boys and girls (11 boys, 22 girls) from middle class families. Their ages were between three and five years, and they were in two different nursery schools. They were tested in two sessions (first a naming task; second a recognition task); the tests used Farnsworth-Munsell color chips.

The precise steps and procedures of the tests will be omitted here in the interest of space, but the outcome reported by Kimball et al. supported the "weakest" form of the WH. The bottom line is that the empirical data from this research supports the finding by Delee Lantz and Eric. H. Lenneberg that six-year-old hearing children remembered colors "significantly better" than six-year-old children who were deaf and had no language system (Kimball 978).

John Adai; Sol Wort, "The Navajo as Filmmaker: A Brief Report of Research in the Cross-Cultural Aspects of Film Communication," American Anthropologist. In this article the authors are very much supportive of the value of the Whorfian hypothesis and seek to validate it. They are working with moving pictures and Navajo Indians in an effort to "shed light on the Whorfian hypothesis" since most previous work (at least up to the time of the article, 1967), they contend, has mainly been limited to "linguistic investigation of cognitive phenomena." This interesting experiment was conducted using three young men and three young women (all bilingual) - and a 55-year-old monolingual woman - all seven of Navajo ethnicity. The participants were instructed as to how to "conceive, to photograph, and to edit 16 mm silent film" (Adai, 76). As to what their silent film subject would be, that was entirely up to them.

The operating hypothesis put forward was that a movie created entirely by this group might reveal "aspects of cognition and values that may be inhibited, not observable, or not analyzable" when the process of investigation relies on "verbal exchange" conducted in the language of the investigator. Moreover, producing film images then sequencing those images by editing, cutting and pasting, just might help researchers understand better the WH. Another operating theory here is that by treating the visual as though it were a language, and then following up by comparing the two "linguistic structures" (visual and verbal) - believing that both make statements about cognition and culture "across two modes" - may provide a context in which the Whorfian manner comes clearer into focus.

Yet another idea was that juxtaposing the final product with the raw original footage would surely shed light on the cognitive dynamics of Navajos (77). Meanwhile, on page 78, the authors report their findings; a) it is feasible to teach people "of another society"… READ MORE

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