Debate on language and thought

[Peterson, Mark Allen Dr.]

The number of people who raise the so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis who don't seem to have read Whorf carefully is enormous. The stress on vocabulary among them clearly reflects some kind of language ideology that says language is about lexicon not grammar... How widespread is this outside the US I wonder?

Mark Allen Peterson
Chief Departmental Advisor, Anthropology Department
& Associate Professor, International Studies Program
petersm2 at muohio.edu
120 Upham Hall
Miami University
Oxford OH 45056
(513) 529-5018 (office)
(513) 529-8396 (fax)
________________________________________
From: Linguistic Anthropology Discussion Group [LINGANTH at listserv.linguistlist.org] On Behalf Of Alexander King [a.king at ABDN.AC.UK]
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2010 6:10 AM
To: LINGANTH at listserv.linguistlist.org
Subject: Re: Debate on language and thought

If debates started out with people pretty much agreeing with each other like this, then the genre would quickly die off. Boroditsky isn't very sophisticated in her reading of Whorf, is she? Nor are her comments on the Piraha case, which I assume is her 'evidence' for the 'can't count' phenomenon. Of course, if Piraha speakers decide they want to start counting batteries (the objects used in Gordon's flawed 'experiments'), they will figure it out just fine. The ironic thing is that the 'against' position by Liberman is the most Whorfian of the lot! The moderator strikes me as someone who never read Whorf, or at least no more carefully than the low half of my first-year students. As any careful reader of Whorf knows, the words, the vocabulary, are a teeny-tiny aspect of his point.


Alex

On 16 Dec 2010, at 3:49 am, Kerim Friedman wrote:

> The Economist is hosting a debate between Lera Boroditsky and Mark Liberman
> on the relationship between language and thought. More info here:
>
> http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2010/12/neo-whorfianism
>
> Cheers,
>
> Kerim
>
>
> --
>
>
> *P. Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 <http://kerim.oxus.net/>*
> *
> *
>
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Indigenous Cultures
> College of Indigenous Studies
> National DongHwa University, TAIWAN
> 助理教授國立東華大學民族文化學系

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