Language, Thought and Reality
Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf
The pioneering linguist Benjamin Whorf (1897–1941) grasped the relationship between human language and human thinking: how language can shape our innermost thoughts. His basic thesis is that our perception of the world and our ways of thinking about it are deeply influenced by the structure of the languages we speak.
@appassionato @bookstodon @linguistics Well, that's a bit too much of hype, because there is very little evidence that Whorf's basic thesis is relevant in the real world. The only artefact I am aware of is a study on colour perception that is different for speakers of languages like Russian that have two words for blue (denoting azure and indigo as basic colours).
@jk @appassionato @bookstodon @linguistics What this evidence for linguistic relativity actually shows is how speakers name things, not how they percieve things: two related objects may have different names in one language, but only one in another; but if you present both things to the speakers at the same time, they both will agree that the things are different.
This wouldn't be the case if language (that is, names) were to influence your perception of the world.
@LupinoArts @jk @appassionato @bookstodon @linguistics there's research (ref Lea Boroditsky) that people speaking languages that have distinct words for shades of blue (Russian, Italian) are better at distinguishing the actual shades of blue
@mapto @jk @appassionato @linguistics Just read this paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245631970_Effects_of_language_on_color_discriminability Interesting findings, but i assume the effects could also be explained by priming: If you have a more differentiated lexicon for categories, you are faster at sorting elements into those categories, but this does not necessarily mean that you percieve those elements differently. I wonder, how the results would look if they compared, say, artists against non-artists.
@LupinoArts @mapto @appassionato @linguistics It is not as easy as that. A proper experiment on this (like the one by Maier and Abdel Rahman I am alluding to) does not require the probands to name the colour. Instead, shapes in different shades of blue are presented and the task is to recognise the SHAPE of the objects. Due to the short reaction time some objects are missed by the test persons. 1/2
@mapto @jk @LupinoArts @linguistics
"We conclude that linguistic enhancement of color contrasts provides targets with a head start in accessing visual consciousness. Our native language is thus one of the forces that determine what we consciously perceive."
@appassionato @mapto @jk @linguistics It's the same as with the other paper: All they show is that a broader lexicon improves a subject's ability to put things into categories, but I don't quite get how that should be an argument for linguistic relativism (let alone determinism, as the wording in your quotation suggests): all those experiments say something about linguistic processing, but not (necessarily) about general world perception.
@LupinoArts @appassionato @mapto @linguistics First, it is not just a broader lexicon but a lexical difference in the native language (L1) that is significant here, and the putting things into categories is quite automated here. "World perception" sounds very big here (a bit like German *Weltanschauung*), but the authors of the study see a measurable effect on a little bit of perception (here: shades of "blue").
@mapto @LupinoArts @appassionato @linguistics Yes, it is.