The classes I’ve taken in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience led me to believe that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis had been discredited. It seems, however, that research of a similar vein has been published. Maybe there’s something to the idea after all.
Aug 23
Sapir-Whorf Redux?
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My literate layperson’s view would analogize words in one’s vocabulary to tools in one’s toolbox. A brain that wants to get a particular job done will get that job done, but some brains have different tools, and so perform different tasks more efficiently. (Sorta like, in a pinch, I can drive a nail with a brick, but a hammer is way more efficient.)
Does that mean the brains with different vocabularies have different abilities? I don’t think so. If one of these Brazilian tribal people needed to deal with numbers greater than two, I suspect he or she would find a way. But it would be a brick way instead of a hammer way.
Again, just my literate layperson’s perspective. 😉 Interesting stuff, though.
The theory always made sense to me, in particular I could relate to the differences I noticed in my personal reaction to being called ‘friend’ in english v. ‘amigo’ while living in brazil. The connotation of the words carried different meanings for me (which I assume are generally in line with the rest of each culture), and affected the way I thought about the respective relationships differently.