Reflection Of Whofian Hypothesis

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Reflection on Whorfian Hypothesis There are two versions of Whorfian Hypothesis. The strong version is linguistic determinism, which means language determines the way its speakers view the world. The weak version is linguistic relativity, which means language influences the way in which its speaker perceives and thinks about the world. Linguistic determinism is not true because it is too absolute and it puts too much emphasis on the decisive role of language on thinking. Actually, language has an influence on thinking but only in terms of abstract concepts such as the example offered by Whorf: full and empty gasoline drums (P224). People are careful when close to the full gasoline drums but they smoke beside empty gasoline drums, which are more dangerous because they are full of gas vapor. Full and empty are not sensory concepts. They are abstract concepts to measure the content. If the empty gasoline drums are marked with words full gas vapor, people won’t smoke near them because the word full influences people’s thinking that the drums are dangerous. In terms of direct sensory conceptions, they are independent from language. People don’t observe the world according to how language describes it. For example, when a person looks at the stars in the sky, he thinks and says they are very beautiful. This thought is formed not because of the language he speaks such as language structure or vocabulary. It is based on the fact that the stars are in the sky and he has an affection to them and then he uses words like “beautiful” to express his feeling. Probably because people want to express affection, they create the word “beautiful” to describe their feeling. The weak version linguistic relativity is true. We can use linguistic relativity to interpret the relationship among language, thinking, perception and other aspects. There are several comprehensions of this

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