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The Weak Whorfian Hypothesis Gender FACULTEIT LETTEREN EN WIJSBEGEERTE VAKGROEP ALGEMENE TAALWETENSCHAP ACADEMIEJAAR 2007–2008 THE WEAK WHORFIAN HYPOTHESIS WITH REGARD TO GENDER CATEGORISATION LAURA VANDEWYNCKEL PROMOTOR: PROF. DR. K. WILLEMS SCRIPTIE INGEDIEND TOT HET BEHALEN VAN DE GRAAD VAN MASTER IN DE TAAL-EN LETTERKUNDE: NEDERLANDS-ENGELS Table of contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………3 0) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 4 1) INTRODUCTION 5 1.1. Whorf and the Whorfian hypothesis ............................................................................ 5 1.2. Research question and aim ........................................................................................... 6 1.3. Theoretical embedding and methodology .................................................................... 6 1.4. Hypotheses and results ................................................................................................. 7 1.5. Structure ...................................................................................................................... 8 2) THEORETICAL POSITIONING 9 2.1. The hypothesis ............................................................................................................. 9 2.2. History ........................................................................................................................ 10 2.3. Benjamin Lee Whorf .................................................................................................. 15 2.4. Whorf’s theory ........................................................................................................... 17 2.5. Whorf’s critics: the universalist stance ...................................................................... 19 2.6. Theoretical positioning towards the Whorfian hypothesis ........................................ 23 3) REVIEW OF RELATED RESEARCH 25 3.1. Language-thought interference .................................................................................. 25 3.2. Language .................................................................................................................... 27 3.3. Concepts of investigation ........................................................................................... 28 3.4. Positioning of the present study in field of inquiry .................................................... 32 4) CASE STUDY: GENDER IN LANGUAGE 33 4.1. The study’s line of reasoning ..................................................................................... 33 4.2. Concept Gender .......................................................................................................... 37 4.3. Thought vs. Culture and Language ............................................................................ 38 4.3.1. THOUGHT: gender categories ....................................................................... 38 4.3.2. CULTURE and LANGUAGE ........................................................................ 39 4.3.3. CULTURE: conceptual gender ....................................................................... 41 4.3.3.1. Linguistics ................................................................................................ 41 4.3.3.2. Psychology ............................................................................................... 44 a) Gender category-attributes association: universal/ culture-related? .......... 45 b) Attributes ................................................................................................... 46 c) Categorising human beings ....................................................................... 49 1 4.3.4. LANGUAGE: grammatical gender ................................................................. 50 4.3.4.1. Unsystematic languages ........................................................................... 54 a) English ....................................................................................................... 54 b) Dutch ......................................................................................................... 54 4.3.4.2. Gender loaded languages ......................................................................... 58 a) French ........................................................................................................ 58 b) Arabic ........................................................................................................ 59 4.4. Review of related literature ........................................................................................ 61 4.5. Methodology .............................................................................................................. 63 4.5.1. METHODOLOGICAL OBSTACLES ........................................................... 63 4.5.2. MATERIALS & PROCEDURE ..................................................................... 64 4.5.2.1. Quantitative research: Test programme – part 1: assigning round ........ 64 4.5.2.2. Presentation of items ................................................................................ 65 4.5.2.3. Reaction time ............................................................................................ 66 4.5.2.4. Qualitative research: Test programme – part 2: motivation round ......... 68 4.5.3. INFORMANTS ............................................................................................... 69 4.6. Results and discussion ............................................................................................... 69 4.6.1. RESEARCH QUESTION 1: linguistic effect on gender categorisation ......... 71 4.6.1.1. Linguistic relativity and prototypicality ................................................... 75 4.6.1.2. Linguistic relativity and RT ...................................................................... 81 4.6.1.3. Grammatical versus Conceptual Choice: 50/50 proportion .................... 86 4.6.2. RESEARCH QUESTION 2: prototypes versus cryptotypes .......................... 87 5) CONCLUSION 91 5.1. The validity of the weak Whorfian hypothesis .......................................................... 91 5.2. Research prospects ..................................................................................................... 93 6) REFERENCES 95 I. Appendices ............................................................................................................ 95 II. Resources .............................................................................................................. 95 III. Bibliography .......................................................................................................... 96 2 Abstract What role does a language play in a speaker’s conceptualisation of the world? For about 2500 years the view that language is a universal content of reason, independent from thought, had been taken for granted. From the 17th century onwards, however, the language-thought linkage started to intrigue philosophers as well as amateur and professional linguists chal- lenging the long-standing universalist stance. Most renowned became the view translated into the linguistic relativity principle by its main advocate Benjamin Lee Whorf. This principle, a.k.a. Sapir-Whorfian hypothesis, presumes the ‘relativity of all conceptual systems, and their dependence upon language’ (Whorf 1956: 214). The present study investigates one purported manifestation of this hypothesis, viz. the assumed effect of grammatical gender (language) on gender categorisation (thought). Consequently, it has sought to find evidence for the ‘weak Whorfian hypothesis’, which holds that language influences perception. The ‘strong Whorfian hypothesis’ however, implying that language determines thought, was not the object of this dissertation. An experiment has been elaborated to trace possible differences in the attribution of gender to inanimate objects and animals by speakers of four different languages. First of all, the attributions by speakers of ‘gender loaded languages’, i.e. Arabic and French, were contrasted to those by speakers of ‘unsystematic languages’, which are devoid of gender marking for object- and animal nouns, i.e. English and Dutch. Secondly, the relevance of Whorf’s distinction between ‘phenotype’ and ‘cryptotype’ with respect to lin- guistic relativity has been verified. In particular, gender attributions by speakers of Arabic, a language with a ‘phenotypical’ gender system, have been contrasted to those of speakers of French, of which the gender system is ‘cryptotypical’. The overall conclusion is that the extent to which a language is gender loaded, is consequential on how speakers dissect the world into gender categories. However, the experiment does not yield evidence for the relevance of a cryptotype-phenotype distinction with respect to linguistic relativity. 3 0) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am very grateful to Prof. Klaas Willems who has been a most enthusiastic guide in my Whorfian quest, as well as the intellectual input and driving force behind it. I am also indebted to Lic. Kristof Baten for being, besides the saviour in my statistical incapability, a wonderful support to me. As for the composition of my experiment, I am most grateful to my translators Prof. Willems (and in particular his wife), Dr. Gino Schallenbergh, Hussain, Wouter Degreve and Nancy Durnez. I enjoyed the very kind help from Prof. Mena Lafkioui, Hilmi Lazhar, De Vereniging van de Islam, Jolien Devriendt, Denis Brachet, Nancy Durnez and Sarah Christiaensen in finding a large group of willing participants. It goes without saying I
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