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From: rjohnson@vela.acs.oakland.edu (R o d Johnson)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.cog-eng,sci.psychology,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Computer Languages and the Sapir/Whorf hypothesis
Keywords: computer languages, Sapir/Whorf hypothesis, linguistics
Message-ID: <2698@vela.acs.oakland.edu>
Date: 22 Aug 90 13:49:40 GMT
References: <5137@munnari.oz.au> <1445@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu> <2674@vela.acs.oakland.edu> <38324@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: rjohnson@vela.acs.oakland.edu (R o d Johnson)
Organization: Knights of Vern Dudley Bohay-Nowell
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In article <38324@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> hullp@cogsci.berkeley.edu.UUCP () writes:
>In article <2674@vela.acs.oakland.edu> rjohnson@vela.acs.oakland.edu (R o d Johnson) writes:
>>I, and I think many other linguists (though
>>not all), have a gut feeling that somewhere, somehow, deep down,
>>there's a kernel of truth in the idea, but no attempt to frame it as
>>an empirical hypothesis has, to my knowledge, really led anywhere.

>Actually, several studies have indeed led somewhere.  Casagrande's
>1950's studies demonstrated a so-called Whorfian effect on children's
>perception of shape.  The comparison was between Navaho speakers
>(whose language mandates the marking of shape with inflections) and
>English speakers.  

Thanks for this information.  I guess I was using "led anywhere" in a
somewhat more global sense.  That is, I know there have been a
smattering of studies that purport to be consistent with ("confirm" is
too strong, I think) the S/W hypothesis--but it doesn't seem that any
real coherent picture emerges of "thought" as a whole being strongly
affected by "language" as a whole; that is, we have little evidence
that "Whorfian" effects are of fundamental importance to cognition.
Instead we get hints that there may be something there, but the
results are mixed and often rather tentative.  Does this fit with your
perspective on things?  (Admittedly, notions like "of fundamental
importance" are pretty difficult to assess.)

On the other hand, as you say, the best-known disconfirming studies
suffer from being in the relatively few areas where there probably are
reliable hardwired universals, as in Berlin and Kay's studies of color
terms.  In the huge gray area, evidence seems hard to come by.  I was
briefly involved with a cognitive science team a few years back that
was grappling with some of these questions, and it seemed to me that
the task of designing experiments was extraordinarily hard--every
approach had serious pitfalls.  I don't know how their work turned
out, though.

>I've just finished a literature review of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
>(part of my dissertation on personality in bilinguals).  I'd be happy
>to e-mail a copy of this chapter to anybody who's interested.

I'd love to see it.  I've been wrestling with how to present this in
one quick blast to an audience of underclassmen.  Any help
appreciated. :)

-- 
Rod Johnson  *  rjohnson@vela.acs.oakland.edu  *  (313) 650 2315