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    Sapir Whorf Handout

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    AtamnaHello
    The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis proposes that the structure of a language influences the cognitive habits of its speakers. Specifically, it suggests that the categories and distinctions encoded in a language shape the way its speakers perceive and understand the world. While the strong version of the hypothesis claims that language determines thought, most modern research supports the weak version, which argues that language influences but does not determine cognition. Studies have found that speakers of different languages tend to categorize experiences differently based on their language's semantic categories. For example, the Inuit language has many words for snow due to its importance in Inuit culture, while English speakers use fewer, more general terms for snow.

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    Sapir Whorf Handout

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    AtamnaHello
    72 views2 pages
    The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis proposes that the structure of a language influences the cognitive habits of its speakers. Specifically, it suggests that the categories and distinctions encoded in a language shape the way its speakers perceive and understand the world. While the strong version of the hypothesis claims that language determines thought, most modern research supports the weak version, which argues that language influences but does not determine cognition. Studies have found that speakers of different languages tend to categorize experiences differently based on their language's semantic categories. For example, the Inuit language has many words for snow due to its importance in Inuit culture, while English speakers use fewer, more general terms for snow.

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    The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis proposes that the structure of a language influences the cognitive habits of its speakers. Specifically, it suggests that the categories and distinctions encoded in a language shape the way its speakers perceive and understand the world. While the strong version of the hypothesis claims that language determines thought, most modern research supports the weak version, which argues that language influences but does not determine cognition. Studies have found that speakers of different languages tend to categorize experiences differently based on their language's semantic categories. For example, the Inuit language has many words for snow due to its importance in Inuit culture, while English speakers use fewer, more general terms for snow.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    72 views2 pages

    Sapir Whorf Handout

    Uploaded by

    AtamnaHello
    The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis proposes that the structure of a language influences the cognitive habits of its speakers. Specifically, it suggests that the categories and distinctions encoded in a language shape the way its speakers perceive and understand the world. While the strong version of the hypothesis claims that language determines thought, most modern research supports the weak version, which argues that language influences but does not determine cognition. Studies have found that speakers of different languages tend to categorize experiences differently based on their language's semantic categories. For example, the Inuit language has many words for snow due to its importance in Inuit culture, while English speakers use fewer, more general terms for snow.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
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    Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

    In the discussion about the relationship between language and culture, one of the essential
    issues is that between language and thought. Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf, through
    their studies of American Indian languages, proclaimed that the structure of the language
    people habitually use influences the ways they think and behave. That is to say, different
    languages offer people different ways of expressing the world around, they think and speak
    differently.
    Sapir and Whorf believe that language filters people's perception and the way they
    categorize experiences. This interdependence of language and thought is now known as SapirWhorf hypothesis (SWH). Since its formulation, the hypothesis was subject to fierce
    controversy and scorn. Until recently with the revival interest in this issue, it regains people's
    attention.
    The hypothesis is now interpreted mainly in two different ways: a strong version and a
    weak one. While the strong version believes that the language patterns determine people's
    thinking and behaviour, the weak one holds that the former influence the later. So far, many
    researches and experiments conducted in various disciplines provide support to the weak
    version. The studies have shed new light on our understanding of the hypothesis: people tend
    to sort out and distinguish experiences differently according to the semantic categories
    provided by their different codes.
    Here is an example. English-speaking culture teaches its people to name what is practical,
    useful and important. In a general sense, the important things take on specific names while the
    less important things have general names that must be modified through additional words to
    become specific. A good illustration of this point is the word snow in Eskimo and English.

    The Eskimos have countless words for snow. For them snow is extremely important and so
    crucial to life that each of its various forms and conditions is named. In English-speaking
    cultures, snow is far less important and the simple word snow usually suffices the needs.
    When some needs become more specific, however, longer phrases can be made up to meet
    these needs: "corn snow", "fine powder snow", and "drifting snow". Once again this proves
    that there is a connection between the words a culture selects and the ideas and things of that
    culture. In short, each culture presents to its members, either consciously or subconsciously
    through words, the ideas and concepts that culture transmits from generation to generation.
    To conclude this section, the study of the linguistic relativity or SWH has shed two
    important insights:
    (1) There is nowadays recognition that language, as code, reflects cultural preoccupations
    and constrains the way people think.
    (2) More than in Whorf's days, however, we recognize how important context is in
    complementing the meanings encoded in the language.

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