Weinstein 1 Rachel Weinstein Professor Moody Foundations of Human Communication 20 September 2011 Critical Thinking Exercise #1 (Sapir-Whorf Theories)

The Sapir-Whorf theories are some of the most well-known and controversial theories regarding the relationship between thought and language. These theories promote two popular linguistic concepts, linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity. Linguistic determinism, the more extreme of the two concepts, holds that the structure of language directly reflects ones cognitive view the world. Therefore, this concept asserts that people are at the mercy of their communitys language. The other concept, linguistic relativity, supports the notion that different languages are encoded differently, which, consequently, leads people to view the world in different ways. These theories frequently inspire debate between linguistic scholars and many have conducted qualitative experiments that have resulted in evidence that supports or refutes the assumptions provided by the Sapir-Whorf theories. The first of two examples of arguments that support the Sapir-Whorf theories is highlighted by Kay and Kemptons article from 1984 titled What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?. This experiment was split into two sections and both parts established a linguistic [independent] variable, which consisted of two groups of subjects of different native tongues, English speakers and Tarahumara speakers, that specifically differed in color terminology, and a nonlinguistic [dependent] variable, which described how similar or different each presented color was in comparison to the other given colors. The predicted outcome for this experiment was that the English speakers would separate colors around the green-blue boundary and Tarahumara

Weinstein 2 speakers would not simply due to the fact that they do not have words to describe the distinction between the two colors (Kay & Kempton 68). Consequently, the results confirmed their hypothesis and inspired the researchers to conduct a second experiment to try and isolate the specific cognitive mechanism that was responsible for affirmative results. For this experiment, subjects were asked to compare the same color by blueness and greenness, eliminating the hypothesized Whorfian mechanism referred to as the name strategy, an unconscious method of reasoning that uses lexical schema to aid in the categorization of the color stimuli (Kay & Kemptom 73). When this mechanism was blocked during their second experiment, the exaggerated difference between English and Tarahumara speakers distinction between colors on the blue-green spectrum was no longer shown. Kay & Kemptom argued that the results of their experiments support a less extreme version of lingustic determinism which acknowledges that linguistic difference may induce nonlinguistic cognitive differences but not so absolutely that universal cognitive processes cannot be recovered under appropriate contextual conditions (Kay & Kempton 77). Therefore, this particular experiment does support the basic beliefs of linguistic relativity by showing how people of different languages can understand color concepts in different ways. The above experiment successfully used qualitative reasoning to support a very abstract concept. However, the experimenters were not able to provide solid details regarding their idea of a name strategy. The use of a name strategy as the main mechanism of linguistic determinism seems questionable because this is founded on the results of only one experiment. Also, there are so many cognitive processes that occur during the recognition and categorization of concepts such as colors and it is too simplistic to assume that this one strategy could possibly explain the complex processes that occur during visual categorization of colors.

Weinstein 3 Another experiment that supports the Sapir-Whorf theories is described in Peterson and Siegals Deafness, Conversation and Theory of Mind from 1969. This experiment directly compared profoundly deaf and autistic children in terms of their ability to correctly identify false-belief, the understanding/recognition that others can hold beliefs that conflict with ones personal knowledge. A key point to this experiment was that the deaf children had pre-lingual hearing loss, meaning that they had very limited access to conversation until they began to interact with other signers in school (Peterson & Siegal 461). The method used for the experiment was modeled off of the famous Sally-Anne task, which used two puppets, a marble, a small basket and a covered box to establish a visual scene for the child to observe. The child was shown one puppet, Sally, who entered, hid a marble in a basket and left right before another puppet came in and moved the marble to the box. The child is then asked where Sally will look for the marble. The test is passed if he/she answers in the basket and failed if he/she answers in the box because this directly showcases ones ability to individuate ones own cognition and knowledge as opposed to the cognitive beliefs of others. The results of this experiment showed that both deaf and autistic children have similar deficits in correctly recognizing that others can have beliefs that conflict with ones personal knowledge. Peterson and Siegal argue that conversational deprivation early in life is a likely contributor to delayed understanding of mental states (Peterson & Siegal 470) and that both deaf and autistic children partake in conversations that are less abstract, leading them to have less experience with receiving information regarding the personal beliefs of those around them. This particular experiment supports the Sapir-Whorf theories by providing evidence for the argument of linguistic relativity through showing that the lack of exposure to conversation about abstract concepts like emotions can directly influence thought processes. Although this experiment

Weinstein 4 approaches linguistic relativity in a much different way as the previous experiment, it still argues that language can directly reflect how one views the world around them. Peterson and Siegals experiment appears to be very well structured and the research provided in the article gives a detailed yet clear description of the relationship between the type of communication children with autism and children with profound deafness receive. This article does state that their conclusions are not definite because the study needs to be repeated with much larger subject groups, but the experiment itself was conducted in a very organized fashion. The experiment seems even more valid because the results also include two deaf children who grew up in families that knew how to sign and both children passed all tests of false belief, highlighting the importance of conversation early in life. Conversely, an example of an argument against the Sapir-Whorf theories can be found when examining the results of A Cross-Cultural Study of Colour Grouping: Evidence for Weak Linguistic Relativity conducted in 1997 by Davies and Gorbet. For this experiment, people who spoke English, Russian and Setswana, respectively, were asked to categorize colors on the greenblue spectrum into smaller groups based on their visual similarities. Since each language has a different number of basic color terms and terms for shades on green-blue spectrum, this study specifically focused on questioning the linguistic relativity hypothesis. The results of this experiment showed that all three groups had very similar categorizing patterns, with very small differences arising due to language barriers. Therefore, this study supports the idea of inherent universalism among languages and opposes the idea of linguistic determinism. The validity of this particular experiment is somewhat questionable and the experiment itself even addresses the main issue of separating perception from cognition. The article itself points out that the safest conclusion is that the data support linguistic influences on grouping,

Weinstein 5 but the case is not proven for perception (Davies & Gorbet 450). I also question the validity of this particular experiment because they state that their data supports the modest linguistic relativity of Kay & Kempton (mentioned as the first experiment in my paper), but the locus/loci of the particular effect is unclear (Davies & Gorbet 450). It is not entirely clear whether or not Davies & Gorbet are rejecting or supporting their data in relation to their conclusion supporting universality. These conclusions, therefore, are very forced and negatively reflect on the validity of the experiment as a whole. The last experiment that goes against the Sapir-Whorf theories was conducted by Cardini in 2009 and titled Evidence against Whorfian effects in motions conceptualisation. As opposed to the previously mentioned studies, this study manipulates the concept of manner and path of motion occurring outside of speech time (as opposed to during speech time) to measure linguistic relativity (Cardini 1444). By comparing English speakers to Italian speakers, Cardini obtained evidence from languages that describe motion events different. English is considered to be a satellite-framed language, or a language that encode(s) Path through some verb particle attached to the main verb of the clause (Cardini 1445), and Italian is described as a verbframed language, or a language that typically conflate(s) Path within the main verb of the clause (Cardini 1445). This contrast allowed Cardini to test the Sapir-Whorf theories through similarity judgement tasks, which consisted of viewing triads of motion clips and identifying the motion observed both nonverbally and verbally. For the verbal tests, Cardinis results reflected the expected outcome of significant differences between the grammatical styles of English and Italian. Cardini argued that the similarities found during the nonverbal tests provide evidence against linguistic relativity because both English and Italian speakers must have shared similar cognitive processes during their viewing of motion clips.

Weinstein 6 Cardinis experiment attempts to qualitatively measure nonverbal cognition in a very oversimplified manner. The methods used simply asked subjects to remember the motion performed during the first clip and then, after a few seconds, asked them to identify the same motion in a different environment. Although Cardini used shadowing to block the subjects working memory by contributing constant audio stimuli, I do not believe this adequately removes the confounding variable of the role of short term memory. There are also very few experiments that are similar to this one and I believe that is true because it is too difficult and unreliable to isolate verbal and cognitive responses in this way. The concept of using nonverbal conceptualization of the path of motion is definitely a valid approach to studying cognition, but I do not think the methods used were particularly efficient or valid. After reading and analyzing these four articles, I personally find myself leaning towards the conclusions provided by Peterson & Siegals study of deaf children and autistic children. To me, this particular experiment was the most objective and well-organized out of the four and provided conclusions that were firm, but not too extreme. All four experiments spent a lot of time convincing and reassuring the reader that their experiment successfully tested abstract concepts in a concrete way, but, personally, the only experiment that I truly trusted was Peterson & Siegals study. They also provided the most outside information to help support their argument, which I found extremely helpful in understanding the implications of their experiment as a whole. After reading studies from several different perspectives regarding the Sapir-Whorf theories, I have decided that linguistic determinism does exist, but in a less extreme form as originally argued by Sapir and Whorf. Particularly, I do not believe that our thoughts are profoundly bound and restricted by our languages. I think that it is too difficult to isolate specific cognitive functions to adequately provide undeniable evidence for either sides of the extreme,

Weinstein 7 which leads me to adopt a less drastic philosophy regarding the relationship between language and thought. I do think that certain concepts are less accessible more difficult to concisely describe for those without semantic labels for certain concepts, but that does not mean that those individuals can not comprehend the concept in their own way.

Works Cited Cardini, Filippo-Enrico. "Evidence Against Whorfian Effects in Motion Conceptualisation." Journal of Pragmatics. 42. (2010): 1442-1459. Web. 16 Sep. 2011. Davies, Ian. "A Study of Colour Grouping in Three Languages: A Test of the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis." British Journal of Psychology. 89. (1998): 433-452. Web. 14 Sep. 2011.

Kay, Paul, and Willett Kempton. "What Is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?." American Anthropologist. 86.1 (1984): 65-79. Web. 14 Sep. 2011.

Weinstein 8 Peterson, Candida, and Michael Siegal. "Deafness, Conversation, and Theory of Mind." Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 36.3 (1995): 459-474. Web. 16 Sep. 2011.