Speaker A
Hello everybody, welcome back. So, uh, it's been a long time, but today we'll be talking a little bit about language, cognition, and culture. One of these topics within that vein is linguistic relativity, or the idea that the language
Explores linguistic relativity, how language influences thought, with historical context and examples from English, Spanish, German, and other languages.
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Key Takeaways
- Language influences how speakers perceive and categorize their reality.
- The weak Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (language influences thought) is supported, while the strong version (language determines thought) is not.
- Different languages encode spatial relations and other concepts differently, affecting cognition.
- Empirical testing of linguistic relativity is challenging but important for understanding language-cognition links.
- Historical figures like Humboldt, Boas, Sapir, and Whorf significantly shaped the study of linguistic relativity.
What the video covers
- Introduces linguistic relativity as the idea that language shapes cognition and worldview.
- Traces the history of linguistic relativity from Wilhelm von Humboldt to Franz Boas, Edward Sapir, and Benjamin Lee Whorf.
- Distinguishes between the strong and weak versions of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, favoring the weak version.
- Discusses challenges in empirically proving linguistic relativity due to the complexity of linking language structure to cognition.
- Examines differences in prepositions between English, Spanish, and German to illustrate how language influences attention to spatial relations.
- Highlights how English uses prepositions to indicate direction, while Spanish relies on verbs for the same purpose.
- Shows German differentiates vertical and horizontal surfaces with distinct prepositions, unlike English.
- Mentions further linguistic areas such as classifiers, color terms, and spatial orientation that illustrate linguistic relativity.
- Emphasizes that linguistic relativity is a nuanced, difficult-to-prove phenomenon deserving more research.
- Provides examples from various languages to demonstrate how language shapes habitual thought patterns.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to Linguistic Relativity
- 01:32Historical Origins: Wilhelm von Humboldt
- 03:09Key Figures: Sapir and Whorf
- 04:53Challenges in Proving Linguistic Relativity
- 06:25Prepositions: English vs. Spanish
- 08:04Prepositions: English vs. German
- 09:36Further Linguistic Investigations
- 21:17Summary and Conclusion
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
or languages you speak shape the way you think and view the world around you. So, by way of an overview, we'll first talk a little bit about the history of this research program, how it has evolved over the last century or two, and then
Speaker A
we'll talk about some areas within the study of language that hopefully can illustrate for you viewers at home, uh, that this is a real phenomenon, as nebulous and as difficult to test as it may be. All right, so first I want to
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propose a three-way relationship between these three ideas: language, cognition, and culture. And that's probably unsurprising by itself. I'm not going to go into examples to illustrate this, but today what we're going to be focusing on is the relationship between language and
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cognition. More specifically, we're looking at this direction relationship: how language shapes cognition. So, I understand that cognition and language mediate each other more correctly, but again, linguistic relativity is really looking at how language shapes cognition. All right, so where does this
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come from? This is actually a really old idea. It's been around for centuries, maybe even millennia. People have been talking for a long time about this idea that language shapes thinking, but it's really been only within the last
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century or two centuries that this idea has received any scholarly treatment. And this idea can perhaps be traced back to the work of one man in the 19th century, Wilhelm von Humboldt. So, Wilhelm von Humboldt was a German romanticist, and he was
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writing a lot of views about language at a time when the European nation-states were consolidating, and it was very fashionable to talk about this idea of one nation, one language. So, it was out of that spirit that a lot of his
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influential ideas about language arose. And one of those ideas was to humble: each language has its own worldview. It was a pretty radical idea at the time. It received a lot of attention, but as innovative as it was, it was seriously
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flawed because he was actually proposing that some of these languages and their attendant worldviews are better or more civilized than others. So, if we fast forward a few decades, it was really the work of one man, Franz
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Boas, who was a pioneering figure within the field of anthropology that did more than anyone else at the time to refute the then prevalent idea that some languages and cultures are more advanced or primitive than others.
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It was really through his fieldwork with the Inuit that he demonstrated that the language you speak can reflect differences in thinking. So, the key word there is reflect. So, Boas had a few students that became very famous later on, one of whom
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is named Edward Sapir. Edward Sapir is known as the father of American linguistics. He's very famous. He came up with a lot of influential theories about language, and one of his students was named Benjamin Lee Whorf. No relation to
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the guy on Star Trek. Benjamin Lee Whorf was not actually formally trained as a linguist. He actually worked for the Hartford Fire Insurance Company and came up with a lot of influential ideas about language, and his most famous ideas
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concern this idea of linguistic relativity. So, linguistic relativity is also variously known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, even though the two didn't actually work much, if at all, together on this idea. Now, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has two versions: a strong version and a weak
Speaker A
version. Now, the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis says that language determines thought, whereas the weak version says that language merely influences thought. Now, what I would invite you to consider and what I would argue is that the weak
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version is obviously true, but the strong version is obviously false. And it is in that vast middle ground that researchers must seek to test linguistic relativity. It's a nebulous idea. It's notoriously difficult to prove because, well, when researchers have tried to demonstrate a
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link between structural aspects of a language and connecting them to cognitive categories, um, they've actually failed to do so, and all they've succeeded at doing is actually showing what languages will allow you to say or showing what speakers of those languages
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habitually do. Those are interesting, but it is not as interesting as what linguistic relativity is getting at. So, um, in what follows, I'm kind of saying this realizing that it's very difficult to prove, but hopefully with the examples
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from each of these areas of linguistic study, we can see that it is a real thing and then it's, uh, deserving of more attention. So now I think we're ready to start talking about areas in linguistic investigation that can demonstrate, uh,
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how the language you speak, uh, shapes the way that you think, whether you feel it influences or determines it or somewhere in the middle there. Let's start with prepositions, which is actually a bit part of a bigger class called adpositions. So,
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let's take, uh, two languages here. Let's take English and Spanish to illustrate how prepositions are used differently in these languages. Now, English is what is called a satellite-framed language, and that means that it is the job of
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prepositions like into, through, across, by, those things are responsible for asserting the direction or the trajectory that something follows when it is headed somewhere. And we can compare this to a verb-framed language like Spanish. In these languages, it is
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actually the job of the verb to assert the direction or the trajectory that something travels in. So, to illustrate what's meant by that idea, consider these two utterances. So, first in English, we have "The bottle floated into the cave." So,
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here it is the preposition into that is really responsible for saying the direction that the bottle traveled. But probably the most faithful translation of that sentence in Spanish is this: "La botella entró en la cueva flotando," which literally means the bottle entered the cave floating. So, notice
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there's actually no preposition present in this sentence. Now, Spanish does have prepositions, but this example just serves to show that it's the verb enter that says where, um, something is going. After all, just think about enter as compared to exit. There's a little bit of
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a difference in the direction that something is traveling. So, again, this is something that, um, is kind of connecting to linguistic relativity: that the language you speak is kind of, um, well, forcing you to attend to certain aspects of your
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reality by relying on things like prepositions to assert a trajectory, or if you speak Spanish, then you'll be using verbs to do that same thing. Now, let's compare English with another language, German. So, in English, we have just one preposition to talk about that
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something is on, whether it's on a vertical surface like a wall or it's on a horizontal surface like a table. Whether we're saying the book is on the table, the calendar is on the wall, we still use the same preposition on. That's
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a little bit different in a language like German, however. German actually has two prepositions where English just uses one. So, in German, you have this form here, an, which means on a vertical surface, and then you have auf, which means on a
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horizontal surface. So, again, this is an example that shows that if you speak a language like German, these are aspects of your reality that you have to pay attention to. It's not enough to just say, like an English on. Um, you have to decide
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is that a vertical surface or is that a horizontal surface because that will determine which of these prepositions you need to use. Okay, so let's talk about another area than linguistic investigation that will illustrate linguistic relativity. So, let's talk a little bit about
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classifiers. Classifiers are basically morphemes in a language that indicate the type or class that something belongs to, and a lot of languages use these, but English unfortunately is not one of them. s
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so in Navajo there is a very elaborate system of classifiers that basically say um hi I'm a member of this category versus I'm a member of this other category so for example the word for pencil in Navajo will also take a
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classifier that says it belongs to a class of objects that are generally uh stiff and slender like the shape of a pencil or a marker like this one that I'm holding whereas if you're talking about a piece of paper in Navajo the
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word for that concept will take a classifier that's belonging to a different set of objects most notably things that are thin and flat like the shape of a paper or a leaf or something like that so it's kind of uh asking you
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as a speaker of these languages to remember what category do these things belong to a pencil a paper very much related of course but they look different they feel different they belong to two different classifier sets this actually is taken to a greater
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extreme in a language called gerbal it's not a rodent but it is an indigenous language that is spoken in Australia and there's a another very elaborate set of classifiers used in this language I'm just picking out a couple here to
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illustrate what these do because it is so exotic compared to even Navajo so in gerbal there is one classifier that is used to indicate that something belongs to a group of including men Kangaroos and boomerangs whereas there is another
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classifier that indicates that something else belongs to a set of women fire and dangerous things now I'm not going to talk about the Exotic classification of those things after all why should these things be related why should these things be
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related this is actually the title of a book that George Loff wrote in the 1980s it was very influential in cognitive grammar I invite you to read it but just think about what that means as a speaker of this language you might have to keep
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track of well does this actually go with this classifier or this other classifier so examples of other languages that use classifiers include Japanese Swahili and signed languages all right so next let's talk about lexicalization lexicalization is basically a fancy word for the process
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of forming a word so languages differ to a huge extent here so uh to what extent can a concept be formed in just one word um if we consider um two languages English versus Inuit we see very different strategies here so let's take
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one category the notion of snow so in English and if we're talking about um the quality of a snow of snow we have to add more words on to it we have to say things like wet snow dry snow powdery
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snow um spring snow good snowball throwing snow we have to pile words on to specify the quality of the snow that we're talking about now this is a little bit different in a language like Inuit now you may have heard about this and
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think you know where I'm going because you have heard oh there must be dozens or even hundreds hundreds of hundreds of words for snow that Eskimos have there's two things I want to say about that um first that is a complete myth that
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unfortunately has been passed down the generations not sure where it started but um it's not actually a uh it's not actually the case that this language has dozens or hundreds of words for snow it's maybe just four to six it is still
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a more richly lexicalized category than in English however the second thing I want to say is just as a total aside if you're talking about uh the speakers in that Community it's better to refer to them as Inuit at least those group of
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speakers if they're in Canada or in Greenland Eskimo is often seen as a very derogatory term so I would invite you to talk about that community of speakers as Inuit now anyway the Inuit language has two terms whereas English has one so
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these two basic terms you have coni which means snow in the air and Aon which means snow on the ground so from these two basic forms they're two completely different words as you can see uh Inuit can add on affixes to do
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what English requires extra words for um so it's not again the case that Inuit has dozens of words for snow maybe more accurately something on the order of four to six words for snow but again um it's a more it's a richer lexical
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category than it is in English we just have one word for the white stuff that falls from the sky snow whereas there is at least two basic forms that can be exra extrapolated upon with uh expounded upon with affixes to specify the quality
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of that snow further like wet snow that is still in the air for example so another area and perhaps one of the more interesting areas within linguistic relativity has to do with the study of basic color terms across the
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world's languages so in 1968 there was a landmark study that was conducted by Berlin and K and they sought to see um just how speakers of different languages categorize the color spectrum and their findings were quite remarkable so there
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was one aspect of that study that was not so interesting I'm not going to talk about that I'm going to talk about the really interesting stuff that they found so one of the results of the first study the less interesting study here was that
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um speakers tend to break up um the color spectrum in different ways depending on the language they speak speak so that's one thing by itself not too interesting not very surprising but what is surprising is that there is an
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implicational hierarchy that organizes basic color terms so for example there are some languages in the world like Donnie D ni is an austronesian language that is spoken in Papa new guini I think that's an example of a language that
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actually just has two basic color terms it's a type one language according to the classificatory system div rised by uh um Berlin and Kay so there's just two basic color terms one that's roughly dark cool and one that's basically light
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War so um two things I want to say here first it's not the case that these speakers of these languages can't perceive differences between say red and green or black and white disabilities notwithstanding all human beings can perceive gradations in the color
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spectrum equally but what does matter here is that languages do chop up the color spectrum in different ways and so it just so happens that Don is one of these languages where there's two basic color terms and that's the second thing
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I wanted to mention is this whole study has to do with basic color terms um things like red blue um green brown rather than other terms that are parts of other or subcategories of other colors like Navy we'd consider that a
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part of blue turquoise is also a part of blue uh um you know brick red that's a kind of red so we're just looking at basic color terms here for this study so here's where the implicational hierarchy begins there are many languages that are
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considered type two if you're a type two language you will then have uh a word that basically corresponds to dark or cool and light and warm and the third color will be red this is a really unexpected finding that came out of that
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study type three languages build on that by containing all of the languages above them Plus either green or yellow and then type four goes further by adding green and yellow uh type five um is one that includes all of these green yellow
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red dark cool light and warm but also blue and so forth all the way down so English is actually an example of a type seven language because it has the equivalent of all of the color terms above them and it has purple pink orange
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and gray not just one or a couple of those but uh there are other languages that break up the color spectrum a little bit more finely than English does so one of them is Russian Russian actually makes a lexical distinction
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between what English speakers call light blue and dark blue those are actually two very different basic color terms for speakers of Russian Hungarian actually does the same thing with red light red and dark red so what's a big takeaway
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Point here this implicational hierarchy is the big unexpected finding that came out of that study now just something that you might be thinking about is are these languages say on the type seven or type six end of the scale more advanced
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than other languages because they have more color terms absolutely not it's just the way that that language happens to divide the color spectrum so again it's not the case that speakers of a language like Dan that is type one
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they're somehow more primitive it's just that the language categorized Rises the color spectrum in that way pretty cool huh all right so the one last area that we'll talk about today for investigating language and how it has to do with
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linguistic relativity is directional systems and again this is a case where many languages differ to a great extent here so there's two general systems that I want to talk about here um geocentric or or excuse me egocentric or relative
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systems versus Geographic and absolute systems so in English we tend to use both of these and the litmus test for this is whenever you're giving your friend directions and how to reach a place how do you do that my guess is
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depending on where it is in the city or out in the country you probably rely on both of these means so you maybe say something like uh Main Street you'll take a left and then once you get to
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this place you turn right it's 500 meters in front of you then you face north towards the mountains and there it is but some languages are very different here they may just rely on these types of systems or maybe they just rely on
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this type of system so if you can imagine um using say English if you are forced to tell directions only using terms like North South or more exotic ones like down river U River Leeward seword to give directions you might find
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that it is incredibly difficult but by contrast for speakers of languages that are say spoken in Australia where these types of systems are prevalent it would be very difficult for those speakers to rely on relative things like left right
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and behind so you maybe have heard of the Hokey Pokey song that we all learn when we're children we stick our left leg in we take our left leg out we stick our right leg in and shake it all about
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or whatever can you imagine saying that in a geographic or an absolute sense you really have to have this internal Compass that's kind of keeping track of what you are doing and where you are in relation to the cardinal directions at
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all times it sounds like a difficult test task but this is something that speakers of languages that use these systems very reliably do all the time so then if you are a speaker of a language that is spoken in say Australia where
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these systems are prevalent you might be saying the equivalent of you stick your Northeast leg in you take your Northeast leg out you put your Southwest leg in and then you shake it all about that's really strange but that is the reality
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that speakers of languages that use these systems have to do so again the next time you're giving direction to your friend think about hey wait a minute the language that I'm using is actually kind of constraining me to give
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directions in this certain way so a lot of what I'm saying here might sound closer to the deterministic end closer to the strong version of the superf hypothesis but I would caution against going that far because you might
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be thinking well it sounds like the language you speak is a prison that it is absolutely forcing you to say certain things as opposed to others that's not the case though any Lang any language will allow you to say whatever you want
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it's just that the structural aspects of each language is differ to the extent that they kind of constrain you to view certain aspects of the world around you in a certain way and this is what languages do very well so that by the
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time you're even five or six years old as a child you pretty much mastered this system and so it's very difficult to unlearn so that in a nutshell is kind of brief overview of linguistic relativity a history of this as a research program
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and possible areas for testing the linguistic relativity hypothesis I hope you got something out of this video um let me know if you have any comments or questions thanks so much for watching
Topics:linguistic relativitySapir-Whorf hypothesislanguage and cognitionlanguage and cultureprepositionslanguage influence on thoughtWilhelm von HumboldtFranz BoasEdward SapirBenjamin Lee Whorf
