debunking Sapir Whorf

kelley kwalker2 at gte.net
Tue Dec 5 10:40:53 PST 2000


At 09:23 AM 12/5/00 -0800, Miles Jackson wrote:


>On Mon, 4 Dec 2000, kelley wrote:
>
> > At 02:08 PM 12/4/00 -0500, Gregory Geboski wrote:
> >
> > --No. The old Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Right up there with the ether theory
> > in physics, just more hardy.
> >
> > for debunking sapir-whorf and the great eskimo language hoax:
> > http://cpsr.org/cpsr/lists/rre/Eskimo_words_for_snow
> > http://www.urbanlegends.com/language/eskimo_words_for_snow_derby.html
> >
> >
>
>[massive snippage]
>
>Yes, the whole Eskimo-words-for-snow-thing is lame. But does one
>disconfirming example mean the the sapir-whorf hypothesis is
>incorrect?
>
>Consider, for instance, research on counterfactual reasoning
>(If I had wings, I would be able to fly). Native English speakers
>perform better than native Chinese speakers on these counterfactual
>reasoning tasks. Why? Counterfactuals are very awkward to express
>in Chinese, relatively easy to state in English.

do they use counterfactual reasoning in chinese? do they have exams, as we do, that test for counterfactual reasoning abilities? (given and administered in chinese?) if they do, how do those scores compare (tho that's difficult b/c diff exams) with scores of people taking similar exams in US and reading and answering them in english as their second language?

henry liu seemed pretty good at factual reasoning when he was on about "were we to use the nazis economic strategy, then....) :) coudln't resist.

kelley


>This is the whole idea of Sapir-Whorf: the language we use makes
>it easier or more difficult to think and perceive the world in a
>certain way. There are other empirical examples; the Eskimo hoax
>aside, Sapir-Whorf is in way better shape as a scientific
>hypothesis than ether theory.
>
>Miles



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