WHORFISM
Whorfism is a school of thought developed by Benjamin Lee Whorf. Whorf was a student of Edward Sapir in the 1930s, and together, they postulated that language shapes a person’s thoughts. This mold theory, or linguistic determinism, is in sharp contrast to the Neo-Classical cloak theory, or linguistic relativism, that states thoughts shapes a person’s language. The theory can best be explained in the words of its authors. Sapir, in 1929, stated: “Human beings… are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society… The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.” Whorf later expanded on this thinking when he said, in 1940: “The world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impression which has to be organized by our minds – and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds.” In addition to theorizing that a person’s thoughts were molded by their language, Sapir and Whorf believed that languages were never truly translatable. These beliefs, that human thought was based on the language spoken by an individual and that languages lose their meaning in translation, form the basis for Extreme Whorfism.
Arguments for Extreme Whorfism
Extreme Whorfism has its proponents. An experiment was performed by Peterson and Siegel: they discovered that deaf children with hearing parents performed more poorly in cognitive tests than their peers. The deaf children could not communicate at a complex level with their parents, and due to this language barrier, they did not develop their cognitive skills at the same rate as other children. This leads us to believe that Extreme Whorfism is correct; language shapes thoughts. Another voice for Extreme Whorfism comes from Stanley Fish (1980): “it is impossible to mean the same thing in two (or more) different ways”. For instance, the word choice used with pro-choice and pro-abortion or anti-abortion and pro-life should mean the same thing, but definitely has different implications. This can also be seen in different translations of the Bible. When different translators interpret the Bible, they change the spiritual and culture meaning of the original text.
Arguments Against Extreme Whorfism
While Extreme Whorfism may have its proponents, there are also many strong arguments against it. The first of which is a logical argument. Language cannot shape all thought because there was thought before language, i.e. prehistoric humans, babies, and the concept of Calculus before the mathematics of Calculus was invented. Campbell asked this question: “if there was no thought before language, how did language arise in the first place?” In regards to translating languages, Karl Popper (1970) stated: “even totally different languages are not untranslatable”. He conceded that languages are not a one-to-one translation, but believed that eventually meaning could be conveyed. Nature even argues against Extreme Whorfism. Color meaning, i.e. red or orange warning of danger, is universal in nature. So, Extreme Whorfism may be simple in theory, but there are many arguments against it.
Conclusion: Moderate Whorfism
After weighing the pros and cons of Extreme Whorfism, I believe a Moderate Whorfism is a more accurate model of language and thought interaction. Some words can be translated, but I believe their deeper meaning is lost, e.g. “gezellig”, a Dutch word that means “comfortable”. Its deeper meaning is lost during the literal translation into English – a quick search on the internet will reveal the variety of ways this word is translated. The sum of the translations, though, does give an English speaker a sense of the word, although not the depth of meaning understood by a native Dutch speaker. The same can be said for other words such as “gestadt”, “silly”, or “amore”. Mathematics, too, can be “translated” into laymen’s terms, but it loses some of the nuances. Similarly, Pablo Neruda pointed out that translations of his poetry lose their artistic beauty, but not their meaning: “It is not a question of interpretative equivalence: no, the sense can be right, but this correctness of translation, of meaning, can be the destruction of a poem.” But an argument for Moderate Whorfism was best stated by David Chandler (1994): “The ways in which we see the world may be influenced by the kind of language we use… Meaning does not reside in a text but arises in its interpretation, and interpretation is shaped by sociocultural contexts.”
