greg wrote:
So in my humble opinion, the strong form of the Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis is bunk. :-)
It also seems not to have been their hypothesis ;-). from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis
"Since neither Sapir nor Whorf had ever stated an actual hypothesis,
Lenneberg formulated one based on a condensation of the different
expressions of the notion of linguistic relativity in their works. He
found it necessary to formulate the hypothesis as two basic formulations
which he called the "weak" and the "strong" formulation respectively:
1. Structural differences between language systems will, in
general, be paralleled by nonlinguistic cognitive differences, of an
unspecified sort, in the native speakers of the language.
2. The structure of anyone's native language strongly influences or
fully determines the worldview he will acquire as he learns the
language.[14]
Since Lenneberg believed that the objective reality denotated by
language was the same for speakers of all language he decided to test
how different languages codified the same message differently and
whether differences in codification could be proven to affect their
behaviour."
..."Lenneberg's two formulations of the hypothesis became widely known
and attributed to Whorf and Sapir while in fact the second formulation,
verging on linguistic determinism, was never advanced by either of them."
In other words, the 'Strong' form is a strawman erected by someone
somewhat opposed to their ideas.
tjr
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