Debate on language and thought

[Kerim Friedman]

Yes, well, I've had blog exchanges with Liberman about Whorf as far back as
2004...

http://keywords.oxus.net/archives/2004/08/21/whorf/

And I think it is a fair bet that Boroditsky read Kit Woolard's recent post:

http://linguisticanthropology.org/blog/2010/09/01/linguistic-relativity-whorf-linguistic-anthropology/

So I don't really know what more we can do?

kerim

2010/12/16 Ellen Contini-Morava <elc9j at virginia.edu>

> There's a nice paper by Piotr Cichocki and Marcin Kilarski, "On 'Eskimo
> words for snow':  the life cycle of a linguistic misconception", that
> traces the "snow" discussion from Boas to Whorf and beyond linguistics,
> in Historiographia Linguistica 37.3 (2010):  341-377.  (They have read
> Whorf, as well as Boas, Pullum, and other participants in that bit of
> intellectual history.)
>
> Ellen
>
> On 12/16/2010 7:00 AM, Peterson, Mark Allen Dr. wrote:
> > 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
> >
> > - tel:+44(1224)27 2732, fax:+44(1224)27 2552 - http://www.koryaks.net -
> http://www.abdn.ac.uk/anthropology
>
> --
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Ellen Contini-Morava
> Professor, Anthropology Department
> University of Virginia
> P.O. Box 400120
> Charlottesville, VA 22904-4120
> USA
> phone:  +1 (434) 924-6825
> fax:    +1 (434) 924-1350
>



-- 

*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