Debate on language and thought

Thu Dec 16 14:27:17 UTC 2010

IMHO, without any hard data to prove it, I do think people talk about
language more in terms of words rather than more abstract things. It
may be ideology, or it may be that words are just less abstract and
easier to talk about. There are popular books about words, but none
about linguistic constructions or sounds. When people talk about
dialects, they invariably cite words, sometimes as carriers for
pronunciation, but in general it seems that this kind of discourse
doesn't talk about constructions or phonemes, but words. And some
words become iconic of the sound, such as "dahntahn" for "downtown"
here in Pittsburgh. Also, even when the "needs Ved" (eg, that shirt
needs washed) construction is cited somewhere, people talk about
Pittsburghers leaving out the word 'be' in general (a student of mine
said it last week).

So I'm not surprised. Although one would think linguists would know
better, and perhaps educate.

SFK

On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 07:00:34AM -0500, Peterson, Mark Allen Dr. wrote:
> From: "Peterson, Mark Allen Dr." <petersm2 at MUOHIO.EDU>
> Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2010 07:00:34 -0500
> To: "LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG"
>  <LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
> Subject: Re: Debate on language and thought

> 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 ?$BP|2D28 <http://kerim.oxus.net/>*
> > *
> > *

> > Assistant Professor
> > Department of Indigenous Cultures
> > College of Indigenous Studies
> > National DongHwa University, TAIWAN
> > ?$B=uM}65<xT"N)El2ZBgU\L1B2J82=U\7O

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