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Thanks to Mark for weighing in on Hoijer coining the term based on a few
selected quotes. He remembers correctly. I have Hoijer's 1954
paper in front of me, which starts out "The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
appears to have had its initial formulation in the following two
paragraphs, taken from an article of Sapir's, first published in
1929." The actual Sapir and Whorf (and a little Boas) material
cited by Hoijer consists of about 3 paragraphs from Sapir, 4 paragraphs
plus a couple of quotes from Whorf, a paragraph from Boas, spread
throughout the paper (one of the Sapir citations is from "Conceptual
Categories in Primitive Languages," the rest are simply listed as
Mandelbaum (<i>SWES</i>) pp. 162 and 10-11 if anyone wants to know; the
Whorf is simply listed as from <i>Collected Papers on
Metalinguistics</i>, 1952, pp.4-5, 27, 44, 33, 36; with specific
reference to "the Hopi studies." The Boas is of course
from the <i>Handbook</i>.) At no point in these cited bits do Sapir
or Whorf (or Boas for that matter) use the term
"hypothesis." So where did it come from? Hymes told
me one time (I think I'm remembering this right-- Dell, if you're reading
this, please correct me if I'm wrong) that Hoijer was trying to bring
Sapir (and Whorf along with him, but especially Sapir) back into
prominence in language and culture, and this was the way he did it,
through the conference and in print. The idea of weaving these
threads into a "hypothesis" seems to have been a gesture of
respect. Perhaps calling it a "hypothesis" was also about
connecting with what must have been the prestige discourse of that
era,postwar and early 50's, as the it's-all-about-science mentality was
starting to grip US institutions, academic and otherwise. So as a
discursive strategy, coining this term and developing it as the theme of
a conference must have made a lot of sense to Hoijer and his
colleagues. And maybe there is something Sapir-Whorfian about all
that, eh? Because look what the sedimentation of the term has
invoked in terms of "habitual thought" -- notions of lab-like
reproducibility, all that baggage that people have spent years trying to
"prove" or "disprove."<br>
--Bonnie<br><br>
<br>
At 04:37 PM 12/16/01 +0200, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite><font face="arial" size=2>Dear
Richard,</font><br>
<br>
<font face="arial" size=2>I have to weigh in with Bonnie and the others
who cite Harry Hoijer. Some years ago I did a grad paper for Victor
Golla entitled "Whatever Happened to the Sapir-Whorf
Hypothesis?" In those pre-computer days (remeber those?) I and
a series of harassed Library of Congress reference librarians came to the
conclusion that Hoijer coined the term and used it as the basis of an
all-star linguistics panel, subsequently published as AAA memoir #79.
</font><br>
<br>
<font face="arial" size=2>I can't find the paper (I suspect it's in
storage in the US) but as I recall Hoijer seemed to base the whole
"Sapir-Whorf hypothesis" on three quotations from Sapir and
Whorf. Neither Sapir nor Whorf ever stated it in hypothesis form
and their own wording is tentative and subject to many
interpretations. I am particularly interested in Whorf's emphasis
on links between language categories and <i>habitual </i>(as opposed to
conscious strategic) action. It not only makes clear that Whorf
wasn't suggesting a "strong" hypothesis but reminds me both of
Bourdieu's <i>habitus </i>and Peirce's writings on habit.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="arial" size=2>Best,</font><br>
<br>
<font face="arial" size=2>Mark</font><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>----- Original Message ----- <br>
<b>From:</b> <a href="mailto:burciuol@hamilton.edu">burciuol</a> <br>
<b>To:</b>
<a href="mailto:linganth@cc.rochester.edu">linganth@cc.rochester.edu</a> <br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, December 11, 2001 10:59 PM<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Sapir-Whorf<br><br>
For one useful starting point, see <u>Language in Culture: Proceedings of a Conference on the Interrelations of Language and Other Aspects of Culture</u>. Ed, Harry Hoijer. published by the American Anthropological Association, vol.56, #6, part 2, memoir #79, December 1954. In the preface (on p.vii), Hoijer lists what he and Robert Redfield saw as the objectives of the conference, starting with this point:<br>
"1. To define, as clearly as possible, the problems raised by the attempt to interrelate language and other aspects of culture, particularly in reference to the hypothesis suggested in Benjamin L. Whorf's <i>Collected Papers on Metalinguistics</i>, (Washington DC 1952)."<br><br>
This conference, with an all-star participant list, was held in Chicago in March 1953, and the papers and discussion published in the above-described volume. </blockquote></blockquote></html>