The specific language of a concept is irrelevant until it is put to the test. Any qualifying words, on the other hand, become critical to the type of evidence that might invalidate the concept as a truthful statement about reality at that moment. It is almost hard to evaluate a claim about reality of the type "a possesses the property b." Is it supposed to suggest "all an always has the quality b" or "a sometimes happens in certain areas with the quality b"? By presenting one instance of the phenomenon a without the characteristic b, the former extreme assertion can be shown to be false. The latter argument, on the other hand, can never be refuted as long as someone can point to even a few examples of an occurring with b.
Anyone wishing to test the Sapir-Whorl hypothesis is confronted with the following problem:
It appears at several places throughout Sapir's and Whorf's texts, with varying degrees of emphasis.
The lack of precision in language may be due to the fact that few people have attempted to verify the idea until lately. The first challenge is determining what "the" Whorf hypothesis is.
Is it true that "language controls thought," a far-fetched hypothesis? Or is it "language impacts thought," a far gentler argument that can never be refuted as long as some influence of a particular language on non-linguistic behavior of its users can be demonstrated? There is no comment in Whorf's work that clarifies the uncertainty as to which assertion he wanted to make.
"The background linguistic system (in other words, the grammar) of each language... is itself the shaper of ideas, the program. and guide for the individual's mental activity, for his analysis of impressions...," Whorf writes in one of the few instances where his hypothesis is explicitly stated in his writings. The dilemma is whether he meant to say that a language's grammar defines thoughts and restricts the spectrum of mental activity. Or was he implying that a language's grammar only impacts an individual's thoughts, mental activity, and impression analysis?
It is not a new thought that Whorf's hypothesis is articulated insufficiently to enable for contemporary empirical study (which would then support or require change of the theory). According to R on Wells, the hypothesis is "an illusion" that only "appear[s] to be an empirical proposition." "It would be in vain if we searched in their [Whorf's and Cassirer's] writings for practical working hypotheses whose verification involves collection of clearly defined facts and which can be accepted or rejected in the light of objective consi derations," Lenneberg and Roberts argue.
As a result, it's not unexpected that subsequent references to the hypothesis show a lack of consensus on exactly what "the" Whorf hypothesis is. It's not simply a concern of terminology; it's also a question of the implications that might be drawn regarding the hypothesis's reality. The idea, according to Rapoport, "claims that 'our language accomplishes our thinking for us.'" "The overall assumption is that the grammatical categories of a language dictate or at least greatly impact the general style of understanding the universe of individuals who speak it," Greenberg argues.
The second statement is far less severe. The qualifier "or at least greatly impact" elevates this hypothesis to a more persuasive claim. In the title of an essay by D. W. Brown et al., the Sapir Whorf hypothesis is phrased similarly conservatively: linguistic structure "influences" mind. When you compare the latter remark to Rapoport's initial assertion ("language performs our thinking for us"), it's evident that there's an extreme viewpoint and a more cautious approach.
Only two of the many studies on the idea acknowledge the possibility of two different placements.
A "liberal interpretation" and a "conservative theory" are mentioned by Carroll. There is both "a moderate and an extreme perspective of the importance of language on philosophical thought," according to Basson and O'Connor. However, neither research emphasizes the need of properly differentiating between these two viewpoints in any hypothesis testing.
The works of all of the major proponents of the notion, including Herder, Humboldt, Sapir, and Whorf, include the same ambiguity. None of them made it apparent which stance he wanted to adopt, yet throughout their different works, all four advocated for the extreme viewpoint at some time. The following discussion of many empirical tests of "the" Whorf hypothesis will highlight the necessity of distinguishing between two hypotheses: one cautiously asserting that language influences cognition and the other asserting that language controls thought.
The outcomes of these several empirical tests are startlingly disparate. However, I believe that clarifying "the" hypothesis would explain the disparities in outcomes without referring to experimental design or any pre-experiment bias. Others who believe the hypothesis "language governs thought" come up with evidence that refutes it, while those who set out to test the mild hypothesis come up with evidence that may be supporting. First, here are a few examples of pro-Whorfian outcomes gained through testing. Other examples may have been used instead.
Lenneberg discusses a research that shows how phrases like -.for colors effect real discrimination. Those respondents who spoke English were better able to re-recognize those colours that are easily identified in English. This data strongly supports the idea that language categories have a limiting effect on cognition. Brown and Lemaeberg report on a similar experiment they conducted with some English-speaking.-subjects and some monolingual Navaho speakers. Brown and Lenneberg report on this and additional tests that show the impact of normalized categories (language-specific labels for colors) on cognition.
Carroll and Casagrande describe two tests with Hopi and Navaho speakers in order to examine the "theory that language affects behavior significantly." They claim that their findings back up the "notion" mentioned before, and that if this carefully amended hypothesis is correct, "the possible effect of language patterning on cognitive performance... is a productive topic for further investigation." Despite their caution in inferring thinking (cognition) from behavior, this study, as well as those of Lenneberg and Brown and Lenneberg, appear to corroborate the Whorf hypothesis, albeit tentatively.
What about studies that claim to refute the Whorf hypothesis? Osgood describes a prolonged research that aims to "show that human beings all across the world, regardless of language or culture, share a shared meaning system and arrange experience along comparable symbolic dimensions." Despite the fact that this study was only two-thirds complete at the time of publication, Osgood feels it contradicts "B. L. Whorf's theory of psycho linguistic relativity, according to which people think differently and even generate separate philosophies."
The Whorf hypothesis is clearly considered an extreme expression of linguistic relativity by Osgood, as seen by this remark. Greenberg also mentions studies that point to "the overarching conclusion that agreement in fundamentals of human behavior among speakers of radically diverse languages far outweighs the idiosyncratic differences to be expected from a radical theory of linguistic relativity" Several tests evaluating the Whorf theory (by Lenneberg, Brown and Lenneberg, and Carroll and Casagrande) back it up. However, it has been debunked by multiple research (including those by Osgood and Greenberg).
However, a reexamination revealed that the studies that supported the hypothesis were designed to test the cautious formulation that language influences behavior, whereas the experiments that concluded with invalidating evidence had assumed the hypothesis to be the extreme formulation that language determines thought. The outcomes of these tests are not mutually inconsistent when seen in this light. Despite the fact that all of the scientists claimed to be investigating "the" Whorf hypothesis, the original hypotheses were not the same. It is still unknown how severe the stances taken by Whorf and his predecessors, Sapir and Humboldt, were.
Each argue for the mild hypothesis at times and the severe hypothesis at other times. To understand their opposing perspectives from a historical and philosophical perspective, we must recognize that the extreme stance is untenable not just on factual reasons (a result that has only been available to us since the trials described above), but also on philosophical ones. The extreme claims that "language performs our thinking for us" (Rapoport) or "people [who speak various languages] think differently" (Osgood) imply that cognition is impossible to achieve without language.
The proponent of the extreme hypothesis that language controls thought must be willing to accept the logical implications of his stance, namely, that there is no prelinguistic mind in the person and that human thought was not responsible for the invention of language at first. An examination of Humboldt's, Sapir's, and Whorf's individual ideologies will demonstrate the extent to which each of them was able to embrace these logical conclusions.
Conculution
At times, all three appeared to be aware of the precarious nature of the extreme position, which they all believed to be correct. As a result, their perspectives would appear to oscillate between asserting that mind is impossible without language and the more cautious argument that language influences thought. This inconsistency may be noticed in each of their respective ideas. On the one hand, they were prone to an excessive attitude toward linguistic relativity, but on the other, they couldn't attribute language's birth to the divine.
However, Humboldt felt compelled to attribute the genesis of language to a superhuman force (Geist). He would have been obliged to concede the possibility of thought without language if he had admitted that language may be a product of the human mind or a collection of minds working together. As a result of this revelation, he would have been obliged to reconsider his initial premise. Sapir and Whorf had to make a similar decision.
Historical reasons may assist to understand why Humboldt, Sapir, and Whorf took the (extreme) viewpoints that they did. The extremeness of their attitude, it would be claimed, was vital as an antidote to the rationalist proclamation of intrinsic notions. However, the current focus will be on expressing and studying independently Humboldt's, Sapir's, and Whorl's key philosophies in order to demonstrate that the current uncertainty around the hypothesis stems from their own assertions.