Xref: utzoo sci.lang:7072 comp.cog-eng:1758 sci.psychology:3189 sci.philosophy.tech:3174 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aipna!cstr!colin From: colin@cstr.ed.ac.uk (Colin Matheson) 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: <2890@aipna.ed.ac.uk> Date: 24 Aug 90 14:38:09 GMT References: <2674@vela.acs.oakland.edu> <2846@aipna.ed.ac.uk> Sender: news@aipna.ed.ac.uk Reply-To: colin@uk.ac.ed.cstr (Colin Matheson) Organization: CSTR, University of Edinburgh. Lines: 50 In article wdr@wang.com (William Ricker) writes: >colin@cstr.ed.ac.uk (Colin Matheson) writes: >] Thus although it's >]probably the case that one can express any particular concept in any >]language periphrastically, it might just be that the ability to encapsulate >]things in immediately transeferrable units affects the sorts of transfer >]that are possible. (Where the transfer is of information between humans.) > >If I understood that periphrastic version of the hypothesis, I think >it has as a corollary that English is not highly suited to it's own >transfer. Which, given the context, I suspect may have been Colin's >point, but if it wasn't, I'll suggest it more openly. > >Is a natural language the right language in which to discuss the >deficiencies of natural languages? I just meant to distinguish the ability to express a "concept" in a "word" from the need to "compose" the same notion periphrastically using a number of words (to put the thing in crude terms). I'm still hedging like crazy, notice - I don't know if I believe any of this. I suppose my feeling goes back to my sudden immersion in a cognitive science course some years ago. Most sentences which were spoken by most of the teachers were incomprehensible, partly because the specialist vocabulary from Linguistics, Psychology, Formal Semantics, AI, and programming is so large. I could usually get the meaning of any word which was explained, and hence the meaning of the concept denoted, for example, by "algorithm" wasn't something I couldn't understand. However, given the complicated definitions required by such words, most sentences containing them were very difficult to process - and sentences containing more than one were impossible. Eventually the notions sunk in, though, and the result was a qualitative change in my understanding of such sentences - from zero to something.* If one translates this scenario into different languages, one with the specialist vocabulary and one without, then it would be possible to believe that a particular language restricts the speakers' abilities to express certain concepts. While this might be true, it would not prove the thesis that the language itself does the restricting. I don't think I've explained myself very well here, but I certainly don't want to suggest that it's not possible to describe NL using NL. Colin * Another explanation, of course, is that I'm thick. =============== Colin Matheson | Centre for Speech Technology UUCP: ..!uunet!mcsun!ukc!its63b!eusip!colin | University of Edinburgh ARPA: colin%uk.ac.ed.eusip@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk | 80 South Bridge JANET: colin@uk.ac.ed.eusip | Edinburgh EH1 1HN Scotland