Does Language Influence Culture?

Thu Jul 29 02:08:18 UTC 2010

I believe the Ervin-Tripp TAT study  of Japanese “war brides” may be
reported in 
Ervin-Tripp, S. 1967 An Issei learns English. J. of Social Issues 23 (2):
78-90. 

If that’s not the exact study, I think it’s included in the Ervin-Tripp
collection in the Stanford series:
Ervin-Tripp, S.M.  1973 Language Acquisition and Communicative Choice.
Essays selected by Anwar S. Dil.  Stanford University Press.

On problems with the LingAnth listserv:  several of us have learned that our
posts go through to everyone else on the listserv, but not to the sender, so
you don’t know that you succeeded in posting unless someone responds to it.
But that doesn’t explain Eve’s case, because at least some of the rest of us
(me, Rudi) didn’t get her original post, either.  I was unable to find any
live help for the listserv, does anyone know if it’s available, and how?

Kit

On 7/28/10 4:54 PM, "kathryn.beaver16 at gmail.com"
<kathryn.beaver16 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am new to the field and this is the first I've heard of Ervin-Tripp study.
> Can you point me in the direction where I can find it?
> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:         Kathryn Woolard <kwoolard at UCSD.EDU>
> Sender:       Linguistic Anthropology Discussion Group
> <LINGANTH at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> Date:         Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:51:41
> To: <LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
> Reply-To:     Kathryn Woolard <kwoolard at UCSD.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Does Language Influence Culture?
> 
> For starters on this problem of public awareness, maybe some of you
> participating in this discussion would like to write letters to the WSJ
> and/or the author of the article, commenting on this line of research in
> ling. anthro? Not of complaint, but of the collaborative/co-optive, ²we¹re
> pleased to see this new attention to one of our longstanding research
> topics² type, and suggesting some principal sources where interested readers
> could find some of it?  It¹s unlikely  that  the article¹s author is unaware
> of that lit., since a lot of the work cited on. e.g,  cardinal orientiations
> or color terms, comes from ling. anthro. It¹s more likely that she just
> doesn¹t consider it conclusive about cognition, especially on the causal
> point, which is fair  it¹s been the field¹s own perennial criticism. But it
> is odd that Whorf wasn¹t even mentioned in a popularizing piece. And there¹s
> even a tradition of psycholinguistic research not mentioned;  it¹s nearly 50
> years ago that Sue Ervin-Tripp found that first generation Japanese-American
> women gave significantly different responses to TAT  psychological tests in
> their two languages.
> 
> If you do write to WSJ, please also send your letter  (and/or bibliographic
> essay?!)  to the SLA webmaster. Even if not published by the WSJ, an
> informed discussion could make for a good SLA blog posting around the
> article that googlers might come across.   You can reach the webmaster, Alex
> Enkerli, at: 
> 
> slawebguru at gmail.com
> 
> Best to all,
> Kit Woolard
> 
> 
> On 7/28/10 7:57 AM, "Steve Bialostok" <stevebialostok at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
> 
>> > To be honest, I don't know why this would be a surprise to any of us. That
>> is,
>> > lack of awareness, paradigm differences, and so forth plague our field,
>> along
>> > with many others. (When, in the academe, has the left hand never attended
>> to
>> > what the right hand has, does, or ever shall say?)
>> > 
>> > Look, for example, at Steve Pinker's The Language Instinct, a book I used
>> to
>> > assign. His dismantling of Whorf's theories and issues of linguistic
>> > relativity 
>> > in general are not only uninformed but just plain wrong. You could read his
>> > chapter on Mentalese and not even know that any post-Whorf research of
>> *any*
>> > kind ever had been done. And who takes him to task? To my knowledge, no
>> one.
>> > (Perhaps if his hair was cut, all his academic powers would leave his
>> body.)
>> > But 
>> > he operates out of a completely different paradigm, psychology, which from
>> its
>> > very beginning had identity issues and continues to want to be appreciated
>> as
>> > a 
>> > science that espouses universal truth.
>> > 
>> > Steve
>> > 
>> > 
>> > 
>> >________________________________
>> > From: Steve Black <sblack at UCLA.EDU>
>> > To: LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
>> > Sent: Wed, July 28, 2010 8:36:51 AM
>> > Subject: Re: Does Language Influence Culture? - WSJ.com
>> > 
>> > Dear all,
>> > I think one of the larger issues we need to face that is represented in
>> Rudi's
>> > initial commentary is the general lack of publicly available, easier to
>> digest
>> > information about our foci of study.  Linguistic relativity is one of the
>> most
>> > complex and still argued concepts within anthropology, and the relationship
>> > between language and thought takes many other forms as well (for instance,
>> the
>> > issues of awareness of grammatical forms and intentionality/ reflexivity).
>> > Perhaps as a beginning to a solution, we should prepare a short statement
>> > about 
>> > some of the diverse work that has been done?
>> > Best,
>> > Steve Black
>> > 
>> > On Jul 28, 2010, at 9:31 AM, Kephart, Ronald wrote:
>> > 
>>>> >> > On 7/28/10 8:58 AM, "Sarah Wagner" <swagner at MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU> wrote:
>>>> >> > 
>>>>>> >>> >> I find it frustrating that she wouldn't refer to any linguist
except
>>>>>> >>> >> Chomsky, who could care less what people do with their language.
>>>> >> > 
>>>> >> > I find it frustrating, and also unfortunate, that folks misrepresent
>>> >> Chomsky
>>>> >> > in this way. For one thing, NC has over the years stressed three
>>>> research
>>>> >> > questions: (1) What do people know when they know a language?  (2) How
do
>>>> >> > people acquire this knowledge?  (3) How do people put this knowledge
to
>>> >> use?
>>>> >> > NC himself has always admitted  that he's only one person (why should
he
>>>> >> > have to?), that he can only do so much, and that he prefers to work on
(1)
>>>> >> > and (2).
>>>> >> > 
>>>> >> > For another, NC has for many years taught us about the ways elites use
>>>> >> > language to control what people know and think about their
>>>> government's
>>>> >> > activities, both at home and out in the world. See his discussions, in
all
>>>> >> > sorts of places, of the use of the word "terrorism," for example.
>>>> >> > 
>>>> >> > There's plenty about NC's formal linguistics that I don't understand
very
>>>> >> > well, and there's some that I think I understand and disagree with;
>>>> but to
>>>> >> > say that he doesn't care at all about how language is used in the
>>>> world is
>>>> >> > simply false.
>>>> >> > 
>>>> >> > Ron
>>>> >> > --
>>>> >> > Ronald Kephart
>>>> >> > Associate Professor of Anthropology
>>>> >> >   and Linguistics
>>>> >> > University of North Florida
>>>> >> > http://crankylinguist.blogspot.com/
>> > 
>> > 
>> > 
>> >       
> 
>  
> Kathryn A. Woolard, Professor
> kwoolard at ucsd.edu
> Department of Anthropology, 0532                              Phone: (858)
> 534-4639         
> UCSD             
> Fax :  (858) 534-5946
> 9500 Gilman Drive
> La Jolla, CA 92093-0532

Kathryn A. Woolard, Professor
kwoolard at ucsd.edu
Department of Anthropology, 0532                              Phone: (858)
534-4639           
UCSD               
Fax :  (858) 534-5946
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0532