萨丕尔-沃尔夫假说

萨丕尔沃尔夫假设主要内容美国人萨丕尔及其弟子沃尔夫提出的有关语言与思维关系的假设是这个领域里至今为止最具争议的理论。 沃尔夫首先提出，所有高层次的思维都倚赖于语言。说得更明白一些，就是语言决定思维，这就是语言决定论这一强假设。由于语言在很多方面都有不同，沃尔夫还认为，使用不同语言的人对世界的感受和体验也不同，也就是说与他们的语言背景有关，这就是语言相对论。 Linguistic relativity stems from a question about the relationship between language and thought, about whether ones language determines the way one thinks. This question has given birth to a wide array of research within a variety of different disciplines, especially anthropology, cognitive science, linguistics, and philosophy. Among the most popular and controversial theories in this area of scholarly work is the theory of linguistic relativity (also known as the SapirWhorf hypothesis). An often cited strong version of the claim, first given by Lenneberg in 1953 proposes that the structure of our language in some way determines the way we perceive the world. A weaker version of this claim posits that language structure influences the world view adopted by the speakers of a given language, but does not determine it.1由萨丕尔沃尔夫假设的这种强假设可以得出这样的结论：根本没有真正的翻译，学习者也不可能学会另一种文化区的语言，除非他抛弃了他自己的思维模式，并习得说目的语的本族语者的思维模式。词和意义人们普遍接受了这一点：语言中的词汇只是一些无意义的标签，语言使用者用它们来引起情绪上的或行为上的反应，传递信息或引导听者的注意力。词和短语的意义在很多程度上倚赖于语境。词句的语境变了，它们的要旨和意义也随之而变。语法结构语言的句法系统和使用该语言的人的感知系统之间并没有萨丕尔沃尔夫假设所声称的那种相互倚赖的关系。语言的许多语法特征都纯粹是语言结构的表层现象。翻译对萨丕尔沃尔夫假设的另一批判来自于语言间可以有成功的翻译这一事实。我们可以用英语来解释如霍皮语这样的语言的概念上的独特性，这一事实可以证明翻译批判的观点。第二语言习得如果不同语言有不同的概念体系，那么说某种语言的人就会因为没有所需要的概念体系而无法学会另一种语言。然而，由于人们可以学会完全不同的语言，因而这些语言不应该有不同的概念体系。 语言与世界观语言体系并不一定能影响一个人对世界的看法。一方面，说同一语言的人对世界可能有不同的看法，包括政治观点、社会观点、宗教观点、科学观点和哲学观点都可能有所不同。另一方面，说不同语言的人也有可能有相似的政治观点、社会观点、宗教观点、科学观点和哲学观点。另外，一种语言也可以描述对世界的多种不同的看法，这一点在成功的翻译作品中可以看得很清楚。 英文版The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis The American anthropologist-linguist Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf proposed a sweeping, two-pronged hypothesis concerning language and thought. Whorf proposed first that all higher levels of thinking are dependent on language. Or put it more bluntly, language determines thought, hence the strong notion of linguistic determinism. Because languages differ in many ways, Whorf also believed that speakers of different languages perceive and experience the world differently, that is, relative to their linguistic background, hence the notion of linguistic relativism. If follows from this strong version of the hypothesis that there is no real translation and that it is impossible to learn the language of a different culture unless the learner abandons his or her own mode of thinking and acquires the thought patterns of the native speakers of the target language. Arguments against the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis Words and meaning. It is widely accepted that the vocabulary of a language consists of nothing more than meaningless labels which are manipulated by language users to elicit emotional reactions or behavioral responses, to impart information or to direct the listeners attention. The meaning of a word or phrase depends largely on the communicative context. As the context of a word or sentence changes, its effect and meaning also change. Grammatical structure. The syntactic system of a language and the perceptual system of the speakers of that language do not have the kind of interdependent relationship that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis claimed to have. Many grammatical features of a language are purely superficial aspects of linguistic structure. Translation. Another major argument against the hypothesis comes from the fact that successful translation between languages can be made. The translation argument is supported by the very fact that conceptual uniqueness of a language such as Hopi can nonetheless be explained in English. Second language acquisition. If languages have different conceptual systems, then someone who speaks one language will be unable to learn the other language because he lacks the right conceptual system. However, since people can learn radically different languages, those languages couldnt have different conceptual systems. Language and world views. The language system does not necessarily provide specifics of ones world views. On the one hand, people speaking the same language may have different world views, including political, social, religious, scientific and philosophical views. On the other hand, people speaking different languages may share similar political, social, religious, scientific or philosophical views. Moreover, one language can describe many different world views, as is evident in the case of successful translation. 萨丕尔-沃尔夫假说是上个世纪语言学上具有重大意义的理论萨丕尔-沃尔夫假说：美国人类学家萨丕尔及其弟子沃尔夫提出的有关语言和思维的假设是最具争议的理论。萨丕尔-沃尔夫假说有两个部分：1 语言决定论，即一个人的思维完全由母语决定，因为一个人只能根据其母语中编码设定的范畴和区别定义来认识世界；2 语言相对论， 即语言结构有无限的多样性，因此一种语言系统中所编定的范畴类别和区分定义为该语言系统所独有，与其他语言系统中所编定的范畴类别和区分定义不同。Linguistic relativityFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia(Redirected from Whorf-Sapir hypothesis)The principle of linguistic relativity holds that the structure of a language affects the ways in which its speakers are able to conceptualize their world, i.e. their world view. Popularly known as the SapirWhorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, the principle is generally understood as having two different versions: (i) the strong version that language determines thought and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories and (ii) the weak version that linguistic categories and usage influence thought and certain kinds of non-linguistic behavior.The idea was first clearly expressed by 19th century thinkers, such as Wilhelm von Humboldt, who saw language as the expression of the spirit of a nation. The early 20th century school of American Anthropology headed by Franz Boas and Edward Sapir also embraced the idea. Sapirs student Benjamin Lee Whorf came to be seen as the primary proponent as a result of his published observations of how he perceived linguistic differences to have consequences in human cognition and behavior. Harry Hoijer, one of Sapirs students, introduced the term SapirWhorf hypothesis,1 albeit infelicitously due to Sapirs non-involvement with the idea and the terms misleading use of hypothesis in a colloquial (i.e. non-scientific) sense.2 Whorfs ideas were widely criticized, and Roger Brown and Eric Lenneberg decided to put them to the test. They reformulated Whorfs principle of linguistic relativity as a testable hypothesis and conducted experiments designed to find out whether color perception varies between speakers of languages that classified colors differently. As the study of the universal nature of human language and cognition came into focus in the 1960s the idea of linguistic relativity fell out of favor. A 1969 study by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay claimed to demonstrate that color terminology is subject to universal semantic constraints, and hence to discredit the SapirWhorf hypothesis.From the late 1980s a new school of linguistic relativity scholars have examined the effects of differences in linguistic categorization on cognition, finding broad support for weak versions of the hypothesis in experimental contexts.3 Effects of linguistic relativity have been shown particularly in the domain of spatial cognition and in the social use of language, but also in the field of color perception. Recent studies have shown that color perception is particularly prone to linguistic relativity effects when processed in the left brain hemisphere, suggesting that this brain half relies more on language than the right one.4 Currently a balanced view of linguistic relativity is espoused by most linguists holding that language influences certain kinds of cognitive processes in non-trivial ways but that other processes are better seen as subject to universal factors. Current research is focused on exploring the ways in which language influences thought and determining to what extent.3 The principle of linguistic relativity and the relation between language and thought has also received attention in varying academic fields from philosophy to psychology and anthropology, and it has also inspired and colored works of fiction and the invention of constructed languages.Contentshide 1 History o 1.1 Benjamin Lee Whorf o 1.2 Eric Lenneberg o 1.3 The universalist period o 1.4 Fishmans Whorfianism of the third kind o 1.5 Cognitive linguistics o 1.6 Present status 2 Empirical research o 2.1 Color terminology research 3 Linguistic relativity and artificial languages o 3.1 Programming languages o 3.2 Experimental languages 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External links edit HistoryThe idea that language and thought are intertwined goes back to the classical civilizations, but in the history of European philosophy the relation was not seen as fundamental. St. Augustine for example held the view that language was merely labels applied to already existing concepts.5 Others held the opinion that language was but a veil covering up the eternal truths hiding them from real human experience. For Immanuel Kant, language was but one of several tools used by humans to experience the world. In the late 18th and early 19th century the idea of the existence of different national characters, or Volksgeister, of different ethnic groups was the moving force behind the German school of national romanticism and the beginning ideologies of ethnic nationalism.In 1820 Wilhelm von Humboldt connected the study of language to the national romanticist program by proposing the view that language is the very fabric组织; 体制of thought, that is that thoughts are produced as a kind of inner dialog using the same grammar as the thinkers native language.6 This view was part of a larger picture in which the world view of an ethnic nation, their Weltanschauung, was seen as being faithfully reflected in the grammar of their language. Von Humboldt argued that languages with an inflectional morphological type, such as German, English and the other Indo-European languages were the most perfect languages and that accordingly this explained the dominance of their speakers over the speakers of less perfect languages.Wilhelm von Humboldt declared in 1820:The diversity of languages is not a diversity of signs and sounds but a diversity of views of the world.6The idea that some languages were naturally superior to others and that the use of primitive languages maintained their speakers in intellectual poverty was widespread in the early 20th century. The American linguist William Dwight Whitney for example actively strove to eradicate the native American languages arguing that their speakers were savages and would be better off abandoning their languages and learning English and adopting a civilized way of life.7 The first anthropologist and linguist to challenge this view was Franz Boas who was educated in Germany in the late 19th century where he received his doctorate in physics.8 While undertaking geographical research in northern Canada he became fascinated with the Inuit people and decided to become an ethnographer. In contrast to von Humboldt, Boas always stressed the equal worth of all cultures and languages, and argued that there was no such thing as primitive languages, but that all languages were capable of expressing the same content albeit by widely differing means. Boas saw language as an inseparable part of culture and he was among the first to require of ethnographers to learn the native language of the culture being studied, and to document verbal culture such as myths and legends in the original language.According to Franz Boas:It does not seem likely . that there is any direct relation between the culture of a tribe and the language they speak, except in so far as只要, 在.条件下范围内 the form of the language will be moulded by the state of the culture, but not in so far as a certain state of the culture is conditioned by the morphological traits of the language.9Boas student Edward Sapir reached back to the Humboldtian idea that languages contained the key to understanding the differing world views of peoples. In his writings he espoused支持, 拥护 the viewpoint that because of the staggering differences in the grammatical systems of languages no two languages were ever similar enough to allow for perfect translation between them. Sapir also thought because language represented reality differently, it followed that the speakers of different languages would perceive reality differently. According to Edward Sapir:No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.10On the other hand, Sapir explicitly rejected pure linguistic determinism by stating, It would be nave to imagine that any analysis of experience is dependent on pattern expressed in language.11While Sapir never made a point of studying how languages affected the thought processes of their speakers, the notion of linguistic relativity lay inherent in his basic understanding of language, and it would be taken up by his student Benjamin Lee Whorf.edit Benjamin Lee WhorfMore than any other linguist, Benjamin Lee Whorf has become associated with what he himself called the principle of linguistic relativity. Instead of merely assuming that language influences the thought and behavior of its speakers (after Humboldt and Sapir) he looked at Native American languages and attempted to account for the ways in which differences in grammatical systems and language use affected the way their speakers perceived the world. Whorf has been criticized by many, often pointing to his amateur status, thereby insinuating that he was unqualified and could thereby be dismissed. However, his not having a degree in linguistics cannot be taken to mean that he was linguistically incompetent. Indeed, John Lucy writes despite his amateur status, Whorfs work in linguistics was and still is recognized as being of superb professional quality by linguists.12 Still, detractors such as Eric Lenneberg, Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker have criticized him for not being sufficiently clear in his formulation of how he meant languages influences thought, and for not providing actual proof of his assumptions. Most of his arguments were in the form of examples that were anecdotal or speculative in nature, and functioned as attempts to show how exotic grammatical traits were connected to what were apparently equally exotic worlds of thought. In Whorfs words:We dissect仔细分析或研究nature along lines laid down by our native language. 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 kaleidoscope万花筒flux of impressions which has to be organized by our mindsand this means largely by the linguistic systems of our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this wayan agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language . all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated.13Among Whorfs well known examples of linguistic relativity are examples of instances where an indigenous土生土长的language has several terms for a concept that is only described with one word in English and other European languages (Whorf used the acronym SAE Standard Average European to allude to the rather similar grammatical structures of the well-studied European languages in contrast to the greater diversity of the less-studied languages). One of Whorfs examples of this was the supposedly many words for snow in the Inuit language, which has later been shown to be a misrepresentation14 but also for example how the Hopi language describes water with two different words for drinking water in a container versus a natural body of water. These examples of polysemy served the double purpose of showing that indigenous languages sometimes made more fine grained semantic distinctions than European languages and that direct translation between two languages, even of seemingly basic concepts like snow or water, is not always possible.Another example in which Whorf attempted to show that language use affects behavior came from his experience in his day job as a chemical engineer working for an insurance company as a fire inspector.14 On inspecting a chemical plant he once observed that the plant had two storage rooms for gasoline barrels, one for the full barrels and one for the empty ones. He further noticed that while no employees smoked cigarettes in the room for full barrels no-one minded smoking in the room with empty barrels, although this was potentially much more dangerous due to the highly flammable vapors that still existed in the barrels. He concluded that the use of the word empty in connection to the barrels had led the workers to unconsciously regarding them as harmless, although consciously they were probably aware of the risk of explosion from the vapors. This example was later criticized by Lenneberg15 as not actually demonstrating the causality between the use of the word empty and the action of smoking, but instead being an example of circular reasoning. Steven Pinker in The Language Instinct ridiculed this example, claiming that this was a failing of human insight rather than language.Whorfs most elaborate argument for the existence of linguistic relativity regarded what he believed to be a fundamental difference in the understanding of time as a conceptual category among the Hopi.16 He argued that in contrast