Language, Thought, and Behavior

Language, Thought, and Behavior

This week we are considering the relationship of language, thought, and behavior. In particular, we consider this using the comparative method. We will look at different languages and how these different languages affect how we think about and behave in the world.

Put slightly differently, this module considers how different maps can map the 'same' territory in a potentially indefinite number of ways.

Here we return again to the structural differential as a way of understanding how language functions to interpret the world for us.

We will be focused on the level that is most relevant to the actual formal features of the language that we use, namely the level of Description.

In this module, we will see how the different languages can give us different descriptions of the same reality.

In this unit, we will consider examples taken from a number of different languages that can help us to see how the language we speak can affect how we understand the world around us.

Beyond Eskimos and their 10/100/1000 Words for Snow: The Sapir-Whorf(-Korzybski?) Hypothesis

Did you know that suburban white males have over 100 words for 'lawn'?

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, also known as the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis (LRH), refers to the claim that the language that you speak will affect the way that you understand the world around you. The first to formally forward this hypothesis were Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Whorf. Although Sapir first formulated the hypothesis, it was Whorf who was most active in researching the claim.

English examples of Linguistic Relativity

I'll begin the discussion with some of the classic examples from Whorf's work as a fire insurance claims adjuster. (Yes, Whorf was a leisure-scholar — meaning he had a full time job and studied language in his free time. Note that this is a point that many of his detractors cite as evidence that he wasn't a serious scholar. Based on what you've learned so far, is this a reasonable inference? Perhaps it would be better to actually read his work and then decide?)

In his work as an insurance claims adjuster, Whorf was responsible for looking into the origins of fires (ostensibly so that the insurance company see if there was justification for them to not pay out the claim). In his line of work, it was generally accepted that one need only look into the physical situation in order to understand what "caused" the fire. Yet, in his work, Whorf came to the belief that it was not just the "physical situation" that caused the fire, but that the meaning of the situation was critical, and that, more specifically, the linguistic meaning or the label applied to the situation was critical to understanding the cause of the fire. Below are some of his examples.

1. People working around "gasoline drums" will be extremely careful and cautious while people working around "empty gasoline drums" will not. The sense that they are "empty" suggests that they pose no harm. And thus, as Whorf discovered, a worker may with no concern, flick a cigarette stub into one of these "empty gasoline drums." The results are, well, explosive. This, it turns out, is because "empty gasoline drums" in fact contain highly explosive vapors.
2. At another plant, metal containers were insulated on the outside with "spun limestone". Seeing that it was "limestone" (i.e., "stone"), workers made no attempt to protect it from heat or flame. Yet, it turned out that this material reacted with the chemical fumes inside to produce acetone, a highly flammable liquid. Thus, when these "stone" lined containers were exposed to flame, much to everyone's surprise, the "stone" caught fire.
3. A tannery discharged waste water containing animal matter into an outdoor basin partly roofed with wood. A workman working nearby lit a blowtorch with a match and then threw the match into the "pool of water." Anyone want to guess the results?

Each of these examples show how the linguistic meaning of the situation can be seen to have very important, and perhaps even dire, consequences for participants involved. (Whorf is not clear as to whether anyone was hurt in these fires...)

Cross-linguistic examples of Linguistic Relativity

Consider the oft-quoted example of Eskimos and their words for "snow" that Whorf mentions in his paper titled "Science and Linguistics."

It is interesting that the snow example is actually given as an elaboration of another point that nobody ever seems to talk about, the fact that the Hopi have one word for "insect", "aviator", and "airplane". The point here is that if a Hopi speaker were to be walking through, let's say, an airport and if she were to be looking out the window at an airplane at which point she saw a fly buzzing around a window just as she passed an "aviator" (i.e. a "pilot"), she would say that she just saw three of the "same" thing.

This is much like the non-skiing American for whom powder, slush, and crusty snow are all the "same" thing (I qualified that as "non-skiing American" because skiers have different terms for snow - and more importantly, they engage with those different categories of snow quite differently, often to the point of even having different types of skis for different types of snow).

Whorf's point is that, for the Eskimo, these are not the "same" thing. One substance is good for making igloos ("hard-packed snow"), another is good for walking on ("ice-covered snow"), and another is generally a pain in the rear end ("powder"). But, for the Eskimo each of these different types of snow are, as Whorf says, "different things to contend with." Having a different name for each of them tells an Eskimo what exactly it is that they are contending with.

So the next time someone says that the Eskimo have over 100 words for snow, after you have helped them understand how this is false-to-facts (11 seems a more plausible number), you can then tell them that the Hopi have only one word for "insect", "aviator", and "airplane". That should blow their mind.

Contribute to the Module 4 General Discussion