Defining ‘Culture’ Linguistic Relativity Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Representation – Who has the authority to select what is representative of a given culture/ outsider/ insider Culture is ‘heterogeneous’ – 1/ social (members differ in age, gender, experience…) – 2/ historical (changes over time) – 3/ imaginings Definition of ‘culture’: – Membership in a discourse community that shares a common social space, history, and common imaginings/ a common system of standards for perceiving, believing, and acting.

Linguistic Relativity ‘Languages affect the thought processes of their users’ European scholars (18 c.) – interest in diversity of human languages/ oriental – revival of nationalism – interest in national languages and their unique cultural characteristics – Idea: ppl speak differently bc they think differently/ they think differently bc of their language. – Language Thought American scholars – Edward Sapir / Benjamin Lee Whorf/ American Indian languages/ ‘interdependence of language & thought’ – Clips (5)

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis ‘Language influences thought & behavior’ – e.g. gasoline ‘empty’ sign (behave- called) – e.g. difference of ‘time’ perception between English (linear) & Hopi speakers (duration)/ difficulty in understanding each other/ clip (6) – Believed: there will always be an ‘untranslatable’ culture (inaccessibility of cultures) – Controversy/ rejected by scientific community/ scientific discoveries reliant on their languages/ leads to prejudice & racism/ always possible to translate/ ppl don’t understand each other bc they don’t share the same way of interpreting events not bc of the inability to translate.

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis 50 yrs/ Interest revived/ social science Strong version: – Language determinism: ‘language determines the way we think’ – In other words: ‘Language shapes thought’/ not accepted by scholars

Weak version: – ‘Language users tend to sort out experiences differently according to the semantic categories provided by their languages (codes)’ – In other words: ‘Language is part of thought’/ accepted nowadays. – e.g. supporting weak version/ sorting shapes & colors (blue rope/ yellow rope/ blue stick) (Navajo children – American children) – e.g. color names in English & Russian (red/ blue)

Therefore: – We are not prisoners of the cultural meanings offered to us by our languages, but can enrich them in our pragmatic interactions with other language users. (supporting the weak version)