From Language to Languaculture I Franz Boas Linguistic and cultural relativity L as a means to C II Benjamin Lee Whorf connection between L and C Grammatical patterns of your language fashions of speaking patterns of habitual thought Does language determine or influence thought Hopi vs Standard Average European Mayan vs SAE III How this can and can t help us in icc 1 Quiz 2 Agar culture language languaculture 3 Historical tour of how language and culture got separated and partially reunited 4 Franz Boas Against cultural and linguistic evolutionism For cultural and linguistic relativism 5 What does this mean 6 Boas Language and Culture Relation Separation of language culture and race No language or culture more advanced or primitive Language as tool to learn about culture 7 Why not rely on interpreters to understand people in another culture 8 Ordinarily the investigator who visits an Indian tribe is not able to converse with the natives themselves and to obtain his information first hand but he is obliged to rely more or less on data transmitted by interpreters or at least by the help of interpreters It is obvious that this is an unsatisfactory method even when the interpreters are good a command of the language is an indispensable means of obtaining accurate and thorough knowledge because much information can be gained by listening to conversations of the natives and by taking part in their daily life which to the observer who has no command of the language will remain entirely inaccessible Boas Introduction to the Handbook of American Indian Languages in Blount 1996 p 17 18 9 Benjamin Lee Whorf 2012 1956 J Carroll S Levinson P Lee Cambridge MIT Press How language s influence thought 10 Language is at one and the same time helping and retarding us in our explanation of experience and the details of these processes of help and hindrance are deposited in the subtler meanings of different cultures Edward Sapir in Blount 1996 11 https www youtube com watch v Df25r8pc uI8 12 B L Whorf Significance of empty gas drums 13 Mechanism A language s grammatical categories predispose speakers 1 to talk about 2 and then perceive the physical world space matter time in particular ways 14 How grammar shapes habitual thought Hopi vs English 1956 213 15 When a different language compels you to describe experience differently 16 In Class Linguistic Relativity Exercise 1 Write a sentence in a foreign language you ve studied or a language other than English 2 Put down English translation 3 What distinctions are made in one language and not in the other 17 Do speakers of different languages inhabit different worlds 18 Grammatical gender and thought 19 David Sedaris Me Talk Pretty One Day Influence of Grammatical Gender on Thought Influence WHEN CALLED UPON I DELIVERED AN EFFORTLESS LIST OF THINGS THAT I DETEST BLOOD SAUSAGE INTESTINAL PATES BRAIN PUDDING I D LEARNED THESE WORDS THE HARD WAY I THEN DECLARED MY LOVE FOR IBM TYPEWRITERS THE FRENCH WORD FOR BRUISE AND MY ELECTRIC FLOOR WAXER IT WAS A SHORT LIST BUT STILL I MANAGED TO MISPRONOUNCE IBM AND ASSIGN THE WRONG GENDER TO BOTH THE FLOOR WAXER AND THE TYPEWRITER THE TEACHER LED ME TO BELIEVE THAT THESE MISTAKES WERE CAPITAL CRIMES IN THE COUNTRY OF FRANCE WERE YOU ALWAYS THIS PALICMKREXIS SHE ASKED EVEN A FIUSCRZA TICIWELMUN KNOWS THAT A TYPEWRITER IS FEMININE I ABSORBED AS MUCH OF HER ABUSE AS I COULD UNDERSTAND THINKING BUT NOT SAYING THAT I FIND IT RIDICULOUS TO ASSIGN A GENDER TO AN INANIMATE OBJECT INCAPABLE OF DISROBING AND MAKING AN OCCASIONAL FOOL OF ITSELF WHY REFER TO GOOD SIR DISHRAG WHEN THIS THING COULD NEVER LIVE UP TO ALL THAT ITS SEX IMPLIED 170 20 Cognitive consequences of grammatical gender 21 La Souris 22 Whorf projecting our grammatical categories on to reality Grammatical categories interpret time space and matter 23 Language and perceptions of the material world Are our own concepts of time space and matter given in substantially the same form to all men or are they in part conditioned by the structure of particular languages Are there traceable affinities between a cultural and behavioral norms and b large scale linguistic patterns P 138 24 In your own words We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face on the contrary the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds Whorf 2012 1956 272 25 Implications of linguistic relativity for science What if physics were conducted in Hopi 26 Putting Indo European Languages in their Place We shall no longer be able to see a few recent dialects of the Indo European family as the apex of the evolution of the human mind They and our own thought processes with them can no longer be envisioned as spanning the gamut of reason but only as one constellation in a galactic expanse Whorf 2012 1956 279 27 Time Verb tenses as an interpretation of time Ex What are the different ways you can put I am sick in the past Differences among them 28 How SAE speakers objectify time because of grammar real vs imaginary plurals Ten apples Ten days 29 Our grammatical system of noun pluralization leads us to objectify and unitize time Concepts of time lose contact with the subjective experience of becoming later and are objectified as counted quantities A length of time is envisioned as a row of similar units like a row of bottles Whorf 2012 1956 180 30 Write a sentence that somehow makes reference to time in general or a specific moment 31 Cultural and cognitive consequences of this 32 Contemporary western world founded on this OUR OBJECTIFIED VIEW OF TIME IS FAVORABLE TO HISTORICITY AND TO EVERYTHING CONNECTED WITH THE KEEPING OF RECORDS WHILE THE HOPI VIEW IS UNFAVORABLE THERETO OUR OBJECTIFIED TIME PUTS BEFORE IMAGINATION SOMETHING LIKE A RIBBON OR SCROLL MARKED OFF INTO EQUAL BLANK SPACES SUGGESTING THAT EACH BE FILLED WITH AN ENTRY THROUGH THIS GIVE AND TAKE BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND THE WHOLE CULTURE WE GET FOR INSTANCE RECORDS DIARIES BOOKKEEPING ACCOUNTING MATHEMATICS STIMULATED BY ACCOUNTING INTEREST IN EXACT SEQUENCE DATING CALENDARS CHRONOLOGY CLOCKS TIME WAGES TIME GRAPHS TIME AS USED IN PHYSICS ANNALS HISTORIES THE HISTORICAL ATTITUDE INTEREST IN THE PAST ARCHEOLOGY Whorf 2012 1956 p 196 33 Situations where you find yourself talking about