A Positive Look at the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis; How This Effect Affects

Acknowledgements

Thank you to both Melinda Reichelt and Melissa Gregory for all your help, encouragement, and time that you have given me on this thesis. I did not think that I could write a thesis (especially in one semester) before I started this class, but with the excellent assistance that I received, I was proven wrong. Thank you also to friends and family, for formatting help, proofreading, and making improvements on this paper.

A Look at the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis; How this Effect Affects Language

Jana Lintz

In this paper, I present the various views of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which is the idea that language affects the way we think and ultimately how we see the world. Developed by Benjamin Lee Whorf and Edward Sapir, the stronger version of this hypothesis argues that language determines thought, while the weaker version suggests that language influences but does not determine our thoughts. I argue in support of the weaker version of this hypothesis, using not only Sapir and Whorf’s own work as evidence but also the differing views that scholars hold of this hypothesis. More specifically, I examine studies by Hoffman,

Lau, and Johnson (1986), Prins and Ulijin (1998), and Fausey and Boroditsky

(2011), as support for the weaker version of the hypothesis. Ultimately I present my own version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which is that all the languages in the world may be used as a way to communicate though not necessarily in the same way.

iii

Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………ii

Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………iii

Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………iv

Introduction………………………………………………………………………..1

Chapter 1, Whorf as an Amateur Linguist………………………………….…..…5

Chapter 2, Scholarly Articles and Other Texts Against the Sapir-Whorf

Hypothesis…………………………………………………………………………8

Chapter 3, Scholars and Other Texts in Favor of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis….15

Chapter 4, Future Study………………………………………………………….25

Chapter 5, Conclusion……………………………………………………………27

Works Cited……………………………………………………………………..29

Introduction

What is envisioned when thinking about the color blue? The sky? The ocean? Nearly everybody is familiar with the color blue, and every language identifies this color. However, many people cannot see any other distinction within this color besides light blue and dark blue. Russian speakers can, though, because their language differentiates between several different shades of blue

(Boroditsky, 2010). The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is the theory that whatever language we speak influences the way that we think about and perceive the world.

After researching this subject, I will demonstrate my belief that this hypothesis holds credence by showing both the favorable and the unfavorable studies that illustrate how language influences thought.

There are stronger and weaker versions of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

The stronger version of this hypothesis, linguistic determinism, claims that language in general determines every thought, and there cannot be any new ideas.

Many scholars view this as false, because people are constantly inventing and thinking up new ideas that are thought up even before there are ways to describe them. Language does, however, seem to effect the way we think about some issues. This is the weaker version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Most of my thoughts consist of objects or ideas that I am already aware of through my language. The weaker version, linguistic relativity, claims that language influences how we view the world, but it does not determine it. 2

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is named after Edward Sapir (1884-1939) and his student, Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941). The hypothesis got its name years after their deaths. These two men spent time studying the Native American cultures and their languages. Sapir (1949) noted that:

No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as

representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different

societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with

different labels attached (as cited in Selected Writings of Edward

Sapir, p. 62).

According to Sapir, languages are more than simply knowing how to pronounce words. Each language is so different from one another that a speaker of one language will have different views and thought processes from someone speaking in another language. A different thought process will then lead to differing perceptions. These perceptions help shape how we see the world. Whorf

195 continues with Sapir’s work. He eplains that

…The forms of a person’s thoughts are controlled by ineorable

laws of pattern of which he is unconscious. These patterns are the

unperceived intricate systematizations of his own language-shown

readily enough by a candid comparison and contrast with other

languages, especially those of a different linguistic family (as cited

in Language, Thought, and Reality; Selected Writings of Benjamin

Lee Whorf p. 252).

I think that Whorf is saying that most people are able to learn their native tongue and speak it intelligibly. The native language’s grammar patterns seem natural, but when one is learning a different language, then all the many parts of grammar tend to jump out. Then language will suddenly seem more complex. This complexity may appear more obvious when the learner’s second language has a completely different structure than his or her native language. However, grammar patterns are present in all languages. This complexity that Whorf is writing about is the sentence structure. He believes that this is more important than the words

(as cited in Language, Thought, and Reality; Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee

Whorf p. 253). In other words, Whorf believes that the sentence structure (syntax) causes a different thought process more than the words do. He gives the example that in Hopi (a Native American language that he studied) a verb is allowed to appear by itself. Whorf explains that this is different in English, because a verb never appears by itself; it must always be an action. Verbs in English are always assigned a subject; therefore, they do not allow us to think of a verb otherwise.

Boroditsky (2010) gives a similar kind of example. She writes about a study on the Piraha tribe in the Amazon where she explains an effect that language has on thought. The Piraha tribe does not give the exact amount of anything. Their language does not have any numbers. This means that they cannot count. An nglish speaker may say something like I gave a speech in front of

15 people today, or I gave a speech in front of five people today. The same eample in iraha might sound something like, I gave a speech in front of many people today, or I gave a speech in front of a few people today. They seem to

4 favor these general estimates instead of giving an exact number. Can they count?

The answer is no. They cannot count. Their language does not allow them to count. This does not make them stupid. If they were bilingual, then they would have a new way to think and express themselves. This is exactly what Sapir and

Whorf meant when they formulated their hypothesis. Every language differs in some way to every other. As this example showed, languages tend to focus on different concepts, but the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis believes that these differences cannot be thought of when only one language is known.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis appeared after Sapir and Whorf’s deaths in the 19’s, but the idea goes back for centuries. An emperor in urope,

Charlemagne, noticed that speaking a second language gives a life more meaning

(as cited in Boroditsky, 2010, page 82). Nevertheless, the hypothesis is named after Sapir and Whorf. Many scholars are not very happy that the hypothesis was attributed to them, especially to Whorf. Sapir was respected as an educated linguist. Whorf was not.

Whorf as an Amateur Linguist

Many scholars are against the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis simply because of

Benjamin Lee Whorf. Swoyer (2003) explains that this is because Whorf was more extreme in expressing his ideas than Sapir was. His writings were also more contradictory, so nobody clearly knows where he stands. Therefore, some scholars prefer to call the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis linguistic relativity, in order to separate Whorf’s views. I will use these titles interchangeably throughout this paper since they are synonymous.

ne of Whorf’s critics, ullum 1991, eplains that there was a misleading article about the number of Eskimo words for snow, Eskimo words for snow (as cited in Pullum, 1991, pp. 161-162). This is because the author, Laura

Martin, was misled by the sloppy information that the popular Whorf presented on this subject. She has since realized her mistake, but finds that it is nearly impossible to take it back. This skimo misunderstanding is now taken as fact and quoted by many scholars.

Whorf gathered his Eskimo information from an introduction from one of

oas’ 1911 books, eaggerated it incorrectly, and had it published. There have been sloppy research rebuttals since then - some even sloppier than Whorf’s.

Pullum explains that though Whorf enjoyed language, he is called an amateur linguist because he did not have a degree in linguistics; rather he had a B.S. in chemical engineering and was a fire prevention inspector.

However, Subbiondo (2005), another scholar, argues that Whorf’s hypothesis and research overshadows his position as a chemical engineer. This career choice brought a valuable science to linguistic study that would otherwise probably not have entered into this field. Whorf believed that western sciences, such as psychology, anthropology, etc, should also be studied in connection to language in order to keep the planet in balance. Subbiondo (2005) writes that

Whorf had an urgency to convince the human race to familiarize themselves with the hypothesis. He believed that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis needed to be widely accepted because it would provide valuable information for the human race. In

A Linguistic Consideration of Thinking, he wrote

So far as we can envision his [human being] future, we must

envision it in terms of mental growth. We cannot but suppose that

the future developments of thinking are of primary importance to

the human species. They may even determine the duration of

human existence on the planet earth or in the universe (as cited in

Subbiondo, 2005, p. 154).

Whorf thought that since human knowledge has been making advancement in the world over the years, then it is important that people should learn and spread around the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in order to help the people in the future. He believed that this would help people at a later date because as the world evolves, the mind should also be encouraged to change in order to keep up. Whorf believed that only through language would we ever be able to study the evolution of human consciousness.

This overview of Whorf’s writings by Subbiondo 25 shows me that

Whorf’s writings can be interpreted in two different ways the first way being overly extreme because he believed that he had made a major discovery, and the second being that he is extreme because he desperately wanted people to hear and understand his hypothesis. In my opinion, writing with urgency tends to make a person’s thoughts more intense. any scholars feel that a lot of his writings are extreme, but I think that if he was extreme, then this was only because of his urgent desire to share the hypothesis with people.

Around thirty years after the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis was proposed, Noam

Chomsky published his ideas on Universal Grammar. Universal Grammar holds that everybody basically expresses things alike. It further states that all languages are equal and do not affect the way we think. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis differs by arguing that language makes people see things differently, because of the way that it’s structured. People in every culture experience the same emotions, but they communicate them in very different ways.

Cameron (1999) writes a short article on the opinions of Whorf, and how much this hated figure has done in the field of linguistics. Whorf did not simply provide the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as a debate, but as fact, and as the principles of linguistic relativity. Cameron also points out that Whorf believes that languages convey different ideas, while the common belief now is that languages equally convey the same types of human expression.

Scholarly Articles and Other Texts Against the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

I will begin this section by first summarizing a couple of articles that include studies on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis with negative findings. I will then shift my attention to a couple of texts that are not studies; one of these texts is mentioned in a textbook, and the other text is from a book on language that never mentions the hypothesis by name. These may not seem as important as the scholarly studies, but I would like to argue that they might be just as important because they show that this topic can also be understood and discussed by non- linguists.

The first study that I will be summarizing is by Cardini (2010), who did a study on Whorfian effects (language affecting/influencing thought) to find out if this had anything to do with manner and path of motion. He wanted to explore the connection between linguistic relativity and visual processes. The Italian and the

English languages were analyzed to investigate whether these two different tongues affect perception differently. This study has to do with the amount of manner (what) that is placed with path (where) and motion (how) in each language. Cardini (1991) gives the example that Lisa skated (motion and manner) across (path) the lake. This is how the words are ordered in languages such as

English. His other example is that Lisa crossed (motion and path) the lake with the ice skates (manner). This is how words are constructed in languages such as

Italian. Both of these languages accomplish the goal of communicating what Lisa

9 did and how and where she did it. The purpose of the study was to find out if these two types of languages influence a different point of view through the way our grammar is structured.

Nineteen English speakers and nineteen Italian speakers (monolingual undergraduates) participated. Cardini showed them 26 video-clips about different manners in which things are moved (motion) and where (path). For example, the first clip showed a ball rolling into a pipe. Two more clips appeared side by side on the computer screen after the first one; they both showed the same object

(ball). The one on the left showed the ball moving in the same direction (motion) towards the pipe (path), but in a different manner; it was bouncing. The one on the right showed the ball rolling (manner and motion) out of the pipe, which is a different path. The participants pointed to their first impression of the clip that they thought matched the first one the best. They did this while they were under the shadow condition, which is basically just a distraction. A cassette tape would announce a number every few seconds, and the participants had to repeat the same number aloud. This shadow condition, or interruption, ensured that the participants were not able to use their language (for the most part) when they had to choose the clip most similar to the first one. The result of this showed no difference between the English and Italian language, meaning that language did not affect thought.

The second experiment did use language. After the first study was done, the original 26 clips were shown again, but this time only the first clip was shown for the participant to describe out loud. The side-by-side clips were not shown,

10 and the shadow condition was not used. The results of this linguistic task showed that English speakers used more manner with motion verbs than the Italian speakers, and this showed that language does affect thought.

Cardini’s study showed the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as having an effect on the linguistic task, but not the non-linguistic one. This means that our thoughts seem to be affected by our language while we are speaking, but when we are not speaking, our language does not seem to affect our thoughts. The non-linguistic task showed that our language does not seem to be related to general cognition.

This means that language does not affect some parts of our brain, such as vision

(general cognition), which was used to watch the 26 clips. For example, we can stare blankly away in a certain direction, and when asked what we are thinking about, we cannot give an answer. Our eyes are alert, and if there is a sudden movement, then we would snap out of our trance. ur brains are awake as well; science shows that our brains are always active. Does this mean that our general cognition, such as sight, is independent of language That is what Cardini’s results show.

In the second article, Delgado (2004), writes that Edward Sapir and

enamin Lee Whorf’s hypothesis is that language influences thought and culture.

Berlin and Kay (1969) did a survey study to see which colors came to mind first in different cultures and found a universal pattern in the way that the colors were normally ordered. This result was perceptual over linguistic. In other words, the way we see things is not influenced by language, and so erlin and ay’s study did not agree with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

elgado replicated erlin and ay’s study, but she used a corpus study for her methodology rather then the survey method that Berlin and Kay used. She wanted to see if she could reach the same result with this better methodology, because erlin and ay’s study would be weakened if her results had a different outcome. She also did this survey exclusively in Spanish.

Delgado completed her corpus study by analyzing a sample of

125,000,000 standard Spanish words. She then ranked eleven colors in the order with which color terms are frequently used in ten Spanish-speaking countries, which was about the same for them all. She ended up with similar results to Berlin and Kay.

elgado’s result is that language does not seem to affect the way that people think about colors. However, she admitted that the ability to see different shades of color might be affected by language, but the fact that language does not seem to have an affect on the frequency of use cannot be ignored. I think that the ability to see color is a universal ability as much as blinking is, but language helps us to distinguish what we see. Therefore, general cognition such as sight seems to be separate from language as Delgado suggested. She suggested this because all the colors were ordered similarly in her study. This general cognition result reinforces the results of the study by Cardini (2010). These two studies, though mainly seeming to explore the affects of language on general cognition, also tried to show that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has evidence against it. The authors failed on this latter account, although they were able to explore the former with satisfactory results.

The first couple of pages in this section were devoted to scholars who wrote about their studies that explored the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The next couple of texts are not studies, but they provide a good example of the stronger version of the hypothesis (that language determines the way that we think).

The first opinion of the two that will be shared is from Lederer (1991). He has a Ph.D. in linguistics, but he does not mention the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis by name in his writing. Instead, he writes his book about the English language.

Lederer indirectly expresses his opinion that language not only influences thought, but determines it when he talks about sniglets. He explains that sniglets are words that do not yet exist. He often has his students write sniglets in order to become more conscious of the things around us that we might not otherwise have paid any attention to before. Lederer (1991) gives a few examples from his students:

cryptocarnophobic (adj.) How one feels when mystery meat is

placed on the table at evening seated meal.

postpost (v.) To check your post office box five times a day even

on Sunday when you know there can’t be anything there.

shmolffles (n.) The crud that accumulates on your cleats and falls

off in the shape of waffles. (p. 63)

By having more words that shed a slightly different meaning in our lexicon, there comes a greater awareness, or knowledge, of the world around us.

He goes on to argue that even though the English language has so many words, there are still many concepts where words need to be penned in order to describe

13 them. There are ways that a person can think about an idea, but it might be almost impossible to express without the right words. It can be done though, as sniglets prove. His opinion is that, There will always be more things and ideas than there are words. p.2

Lederer (1991) strongly believes that thought does not depend on language. A person just needs the words in order to express his or her idea or thoughts. Almost anyone can make up a sniglet. This goes against the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that thinks there can never be any new thoughts apart from the language one speaks. However, many scholars already discount this stronger version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and focus on the weaker part of the hypothesis.

The second text that I want to examine is from Macionis (2012). He provides a lot of detail about culture in his book on Sociology. Unlike Lederer

(1991), Macionis mentions the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis by name. Like so many others, he looks into the stronger version and makes the claim that language does not actually determine how we understand the world, because evidence supports that adults can think up new ideas.

Both of the examples from these texts show the opinion of the stronger version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. If Whorf did indeed mean this stronger version, then we can never think of anything (at least consciously) without first having the language to express it. However, since I do not believe that he actually meant the hypothesis quite to this extent, then I do not think that these opinions are very relevant to my paper. Also, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis does not focus on

14 the invention of new words, but rather the structure of the sentence. This hypothesis is concerned about our thoughts being influenced by each language’s unique way of working, and not about the words that we can make up. Why did I give seemingly irrelevant examples? I do not believe that they were. They show how the stronger version of the hypothesis is typically seen. Whorf’s ideas about linguistic relativity were not very clear, and so language affecting thought can be taken as words affecting thought. One of the two authors does not directly mention the hypothesis in his book, but the author of the scholarly sociology tetbook does, and both of their opinions match up. Simply, it’s that people can invent new words without the help of another language.

Scholars and Other Texts in Favor of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Like the previous section, this one will also begin with summaries of scholarly articles; unlike the previous section, however, these opinions are written in favor of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. This section discusses the positive results of the studies that were used. At the end of these summaries, I will again follow these articles up with a couple of regular texts (not studies). One is from a language book that discusses the English language, where it came from, and how it spread. The other is from an autobiography of Helen Keller, describing her life and how it felt to understand language after going several years without it. These opinions show, as in the previous section, that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is not just a scholarly idea, but that it can also play a part in everyday life.

The first study that I examined, Hoffman, Lau, Johnson (1986), is a study that was done to see if language triggers different parts of our brain (such as memory) and not just our thoughts. It does. Thirty-two undergraduates from the

University of Alberta participated in the study. Twelve were English monolinguals, and 24 were Chinese-English bilinguals. Half of the Chinese-

English bilinguals worked in English and the other half of them worked in

Chinese.

Every participant was given a description of four fictional characters and their personality traits to read and remember. They were told that there was going to be some type of test, but that was all they were told. Two of the characters had

16 easy to remember labels. For eample, in nglish they used artistic, and

liberal. The two traits were specifically chosen in order to ensure that there was no simple way to translate them into Chinese. Since the Chinese language lacks a clear lexical equivalent here, general descriptions were written instead. These general descriptions described the label using several words. The other two character descriptions had simple labels in Chinese, but not English. The participants were given a test five days later to see how well the characters were remembered.

The authors came up with three hypotheses. First, they expected the participants who read the character labels in their native language to mix these up.

For eample, the label artistic could refer to any kind of art, such as a painting or music. The results showed this as only partly true though. The authors’ second hypothesis was the expectation that the participants would remember these labels more easily than the general descriptions. This hypothesis was wrong. The authors’ third hypothesis correctly epected the participants to be able to think of their own list of traits from the simple labels. Two of the three hypotheses were right, and this shows that language plays a role in how we think about and remember things.

Language seems to be connected with our thoughts, and so it makes sense that it affects our memory as well. This study showed positive data for the weaker version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which is that language affects our thoughts. There was a difference in the test answers that were taken in Chinese and the ones taken in English. This study seems to have been carried out very

17 well, and it is nearly impossible to think of what I would argue against if I were not for the hypothesis. However, the results show how first impressions are categorized with language, but that memory was not totally affected, so there needs to be many more studies on this.

The second study that I will focus on, (Prins & Ulijin, 1998), concentrates on the weaker version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. This study shows the importance of translating books into different languages. This study takes place in

South Africa, where more than half of the schools are taught in English, and many of their math books approach a mathematical problem through a real-life context.

Therefore, the textbook is not only giving them a new language, but also introducing them to a new culture. The hypothesis is important to study in order to make the problems in the book easier to read and understand.

There were three different groups for this study, and each group contained six participants in their last year of school. The first group consisted of students with English as their first language. The second group spoke Afrikaans as a first language, but knew English as a second language. Afrikaans is related to English because of its Germanic roots. The third group consisted of African students who also knew English as a second language. The language for the third group was not mentioned, but it was stated that it was not related to English at all. The three groups answered nine math questions under the think-aloud protocol, which was conducted in a room where participants were taped, but otherwise alone as they talked their way through each of the problems. This was all done in English.

These tapes were later watched, and whatever words the participants stumbled

18 over were carefully analyzed. After the think-aloud was completed, the participants were given 24 hours to change the way that the math questions were written to make them easier to read and understand. The participants all changed the text to reflect sentence structure similar to their native language and with easier to read vocabulary.

These new, easier to read problems were then used in a second experiment. This time there were over 300 participants in the three language groups. The participants were tested in math and reading skills first, and the ones with a score above a certain level and below another were used, bringing the number of participants in each of the three groups down to 36. Each of the participants had to answer nine questions: three of the original questions, three of the adapted versions, and three non-verbal ones. The original questions scored the lowest, as they were the hardest to understand. The adapted questions scored in the middle, and the non-verbal tasks that did not require language scored the highest. This proved that the participants all had equal computational skills, but the overall scores showed problems with the language.

This study seems to point straight in the direction of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. We all understand cultural patterns through the language that we speak, and it is difficult to learn new cultural patterns with a second language.

Think about how much harder it would be to go to a school using your second language, try to solve mathematical story problems, and then go home and speak your native language again. I do not think this is wrong; on the contrary I consider it to be quite an accomplishment (I wish that I had grown up bilingual). All the

19 same though, I think that it would be challenging. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis claims that every language opens a new way to think.

Fausey & Boroditsky (2011) did a study on Spanish and English speakers to see if these languages have an affect on eyewitness perception and memory.

This study proves that they do. The participants consisted of 68 English and 29

Spanish monolinguals. The ages varied. They watched 16 video clips of people breaking objects, both on purpose and by accident. All the agents had blue shirts.

After the videos, the participants had to take a surprise test. They were asked who had accidentally broken the objects in the video such as the vase, pencil, and plate. All of the English speakers could remember, but only a few of the Spanish speakers could. Let’s call the agent of the accident, ohn. In nglish we might relate this accident as something like:

ohn accidentally broke the vase.

Whereas, if an accident occurs in the Spanish language, then they would say:

The vase broke itself. The agent would not be named.

However, when the vase was broken on purpose, all of the participants had the same answer.

ohn broke the vase.

All of the participants in this study noticed who broke the vase when it was done maliciously, because both of the languages allow this to be expressed. This part of the study examined their perceptions. The next one is one memory.

Fausey and Boroditsly (2011) completed the second part of the study to find out the role of language on memory. English and Spanish speakers were used for participation again, but none of them were from the first study. One hundred and thirteen of them spoke English, and 109 spoke Spanish. They were all under the age of twenty-five.

The participants were required to complete two non-linguistic tasks. The first one was an object-orientation memory task shown on a computer. The participants knew that they were going to be tested on their memory. Fifteen objects appeared in one of three ways, or orientations, for two seconds. They then had to count white squares that were checkered with black ones as a distraction before the objects reappeared on the screen. The objects were then shown in all three orientations, and the participants had to pick the one they had previously seen.

The results showed that on average, all the participants had an equal performance in this memory test. Not everyone has the same memory; some are better than others, but the strong or weak memories had to do with the individuals, and not with the language that they spoke.

The second task was about agent memory. As in the first task, the participants were told that their memory was going to be tested, and they watched the same 16 video clips on the computer as in the first part of this study. The difference was that there was a new actor thrown in. He repeated the exact same scenario that the blue-shirted agents did only he wore a yellow shirt. After the videos and a distraction task (counting to ten), the participants were asked to click

21 on the agent who performed the action first: either the blue-shirted, or yellow- shirted man.

The second task showed the same result as the first part of this study.

English speakers were able to remember more of the accidents than Spanish speakers, but both groups remembered the intentional ones. The first task (object- orientation) showed equal results. This shows that Spanish speakers do not have poor memories; the difference is linguistic.

This whole study shows some cross-linguistic differences that occur in memory. The first test about perception shows us there are differences between the English speakers and the Spanish speakers because of language. The second task about memory shows us that the two groups generally have the same memory, but again there are linguistic differences and that affects what they remember.

Earlier in this paper, we saw that the results of Cardini (2010) and

Delgado (2004) showed that language and general cognition occur separately.

This means that a person can, for example, see objects without the language he or she speaks altering it. If their studies showed that everybody sees things in the same way, then why did this study show that the Spanish speakers still did not recognize the agents of the accidental events, even in the non-linguistic task? This question can be answered easily enough. General cognition, like vision, does not seem to be affected by language. Although we might all see things the same, as the object-orientation task by Fausey & Boroditsky (2011) shows, our language

22 influences the way we categorize the things that we think about in our memory

(Hoffman t. al., 1986).

Now, I will slightly change my focus onto other texts that indirectly seem to support the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The first opinion that I will summarize comes from an autobiography of Helen Keller. She was both deaf and blind.

Though she was not born this way, she lost the ability to see and hear at the early age of 19 months. From that time on until she learned to communicate at age seven, she grew up without a language. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis compares languages to other languages, not a lack of language. However, not knowing a language would have similar implications as knowing a different language. We can look at this autobiography as comparing eller’s lack of language to the way that she became once she learned a language. Keller gives us insight on the limit of knowledge without language and the tremendous amount of knowledge that a person can gain with language. Keller (1954) begins the chapter that I am referencing with her teacher arriving. Keller wrote that she knew something was going on even though she did not have the words to think this. She remembers knowing this by feeling her mother’s uick and ecited movements. When missing one or two of the five senses, the others become more sensitive.

Keller (1954) described how she was led out to the well-house, where she suddenly realized that the wet stuff that she was touching had a name. Everything had a name, and from that moment on, she was eager to learn. verything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought p. 2. She eplained that once she learned that everything had a name, it not only made everything come

23 alive to her mind, but it also gave her sight. ust as the...autilus changes the material it absorbs from the water...so the bits of knowledge one gathers undergo a similar change and become pearls of thought p. 45. Thus, language of any kind seems to affect thought.

The second example is from a book, A story of English, by McCrum,

MacNeil, and Cran (2003). They wrote this book to document where English came from, why it changed over the years, and why it has spread throughout the world. This book is very important to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The hypothesis is not explicitly written about in the book, but it shows an example of new words enriching the English vocabulary and giving us different things to think about. I would like to say again that Whorf actually meant that sentence structure over vocabulary affects the way we think. I would like to include this example, however, because it shows how words from one language or sentence structure can merge with another.

McCrum et al. (2003) start off by writing that Christianity brought Latin into ld nglish in A 597, which gave the language an enormous boost. p.

An enormous boost in the language makes me think that now there were new ways to think about things in general, but also this new vocabulary guided its thinkers to another perception of the world (even though the language did not gain a different sentence structure). I think that the words were so important because they were borrowed from one language to another. The authors explained how the new vocabulary was not just more words for the physical things around us, but

the capacity to epress abstract thought p. 2. lder words developed newer

24 meanings, meaning that words did not suddenly take on different meanings, but rather they took on an additional meaning. One example is the word, God. Since the Latin word described it in a different way than English did, it took on a bigger meaning. Another example is the Latin word fiend became a synonym to the

English word devil. This is not only how English has gotten most of its synonyms, but also how we have a greater variety in the way ideas are expressed.

The lexical borrowing, like Keller (1954), is another indirect source of the

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Though the authors never wrote anything about the hypothesis, it can be seen that it provides a clear example. All these new words provided more vocabulary to the language that had not been thought of before and the words gave its speakers a new perspective of the world. This added a greater understanding and depth to their thoughts on the world around them. The same thing happened when these new meanings combined with the older words. Some scholars think that Whorf meant the differences in vocabulary when he was formulating the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but I think that he meant sentence structure. I would like to see a study done that looks into the sentence structure in bilingualism.

Future Study

Researching a study by Fausey and Boroditsky (2011) gave me an idea for a future linguistic relativity test that I would like to see done one day. In their study, they were testing both perception and memory, and it was conducted on

Spanish and English speakers. I think that this is a very interesting study. I would like to propose a new study that is similar to this one. My question is: can different linguistic perceptions be learned? In other words, if there is an

English/Spanish bilingual, then what are the chances that the person will utilize both of these languages as ways of thinking? We have seen earlier in this paper that the English language allows its speakers to note who performs an accidental mishap. It is still possible in Spanish, but the language does not promote this. If both of these languages are learned: would Spanish speakers more easily recognize the accident causers, and English speakers pay less attention to the accident causers?

The participants should include two groups of bilinguals: half

English/Spanish, and the other half Spanish/English. They should be graduate students. They could watch video clips similar to what Fausey and Boroditsky showed of people breaking objects intentionally and people breaking objects accidentally. After they watch the videos, they will take a surprise test. The questions should ask them to answer who broke the items in the clips. It was

26 shown earlier that Spanish monolinguals generally forgot the agents of the accidents. If they are bilinguals though, would that change what they perceived?

Conclusion

Throughout this paper, I have tried to show that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is true. We can find the hypothesis showing up, although not always specifically, throughout history, such as Keller (1954). Her autobiography shows how learning a language is necessary to be able to communicate and understand the world. This example does not, technically, relate to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. I included it because it shows how a lack of language affects a person’s thinking. We can find the hypothesis in regular books, like Lederer

(1991). We saw two studies about the negative findings on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The main conclusion of both of them is that thought does not seem to be affected by language, but this might be because general cognition, such as vision, does not use language. However, language may still affect thought though.

The two studies on the positive side of the hypothesis showed language affecting the thoughts of eyewitnesses and those that are using a second language; and this paper only brushed the surface of these studies.

I have also given some of the main arguments that many scholars have against one of the writers of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, Benjamin Lee Whorf.

Whorf had a different writing style, and was more opinionated than his teacher,

Edward Sapir. His style and the way he worded and presented his thoughts on the subject is what turns many scholars away. I do not believe that he meant to appear

28 so extreme in his writings, but he did appear so because of his haste to spread the hypothesis to all people around the world.

After researching all of this, I believe and have argued that the hypothesis of this highly critiqued creator, Benjamin Lee Whorf, holds credence; and that language really does influence thought.

References

Boas, Franz. (1911). (Introduction to) The handbook of North American

Indians, part 1. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 40. (pp. 1-83)

Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office..

Boroditsky, L. (2010, July 24). Lost in translation. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from

http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~lera/papers/

Cameron D. (1999). Linguistic relativity: Benjamin Lee Whorf and the return of the

repressed. Critical Quarterly, 41(2). Retrieved from

http://content.epnet.com.proxy.ohiolink.edu

Cardini, F. E. (2010). Evidence against Whorfian effects in motion conceptualisation.

Journal of Pragmatics,42(5) 1442-1459. Retrieved from

doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2009.09.017

Delgado, A. R. (2004). Order in Spanish colour words: Evidence against

linguistic relativity. British Journal of Psychology, (BJP) 95(1), 81-90.

Retrieved from doi: 10.1348/000712604322779479

Fausey, C. & Boroditsky, L. (2011). Who dunnit? Cross-linguistic differences in eye-

witness memory. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 18(1), 150-157. Retrieved

from doi: 10.3758/s13423-010-0021-5

Hoffman, C., Lau, I., Johnson, D. R. (1986). The linguistic relativity of person cognition:

An English-Chinese comparison. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,

(JPSP) 51(6), 1097-1105. Retrieved from doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.51.6.1097

Keller, H. (1954). Chapter IV. The story of my life. (pp. 34-37). U.S.A.: Doubleday &

Company.

Lederer, R. (1991).Words we need. The miracle of language. (pp. 62-63). New York,

NY: Pocket Books.

Macionis, J. J. (2013). Culture. Society: The basics (34-60). 12th ed. U.S.A. Pearson.

Martin, Laura. (1986). Eskimo words for snow: A case study in the genesis and decay of

an anthropological example. American Anthropologist, 88(2), 418-423. Retrieved

from doi: 10.1525/aa.1986.88.2.02a00080

McCrum, R., MacNeil, R., & Cran, W. (2003). The mother tongue. (3rd ed.), The story of

English (pp. 46-89). New York, NY: Penguin.

Prins, E. D., & Ulijn, J. M. (1998). Linguistic and cultural factors in the readability of

mathematics texts: the Whorfian hypothesis revisited with evidence from the

South African context. Journal of Research in Reading, 21(2), 139-159. Retrieved

from web.ebscohost.com

Pullum, G. (1991). The great Eskimo vocabulary hoax. The great Eskimo v vocabulary

hoax and other irreverent essays on the study. (pp. 159-71) Chicago: University

of Chicago Press.

Sapir, E. (1949). The status of linguistics as a science. (In David G. Mandelbaum Ed.),

Selected writing of Edward Sapir: In language, culture, and personality, (pp.160-

166). Berkely and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.

Subbiondo, J. L. (2005). enamin Lee Whorf’s theory of language, culture, and

consciousness: A critique of western science. Language & Communication, 25(1),

149–159. Retrieved from doi: 10.1016/j.langcom.2005.02.001

Swoyer, Chris. (2003). The Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis. Retrieved from

http://plato.stanford.edu/

Whorf, B. L. (1956). Language, thought, and reality. (In John B. Carroll Ed.), Language,

thought and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (pp. 246-270).

U.S.A.: Cambridge University Press: MIT Press.