Enfleld review of Deutscher

[Kerim Friedman]

I enjoyed reading Nick Enfield's review and discussion of Whorf, but was
curious about the framing device he uses:

"The science of memory has shown that if we verbally describe something we
have seen, as when a victim first describes an attacker to police, this
verbal representation can 'overshadow' our exact recollection of the
original experience."

This is not a subject I know much about, but I believe one theory for why
this might be the case is simply because memories are re-written whenever we
recall them. I recently came across news of a study which showed that the
more often a memory was recalled, the less reliable that memory became.
(Another study was able to "erase" memories in rats by doing something (I
forget what) during the recall process, thus interrupting the ability to
re-write the memory.) So my question is how much is known about the
linguistic effects on memory recall, as opposed to the act of recall
itself?

Enfeld claims that there are strong linguistic effects:

"Recall that the verbal overshadowing effect only occurs when associated
with an experience 'that defies complete linguistic description'.
(13)<http://www.cognitionandculture.net/Nick-Enfield-s-blog/an-action-suit-not-a-straightjacket-whorf-on-language-and-deutscher-on-whorf.html#note13>
What
exactly are the kinds of experience that defy complete linguistic
description? Crucially, the answer to this question is not absolute, but
linguistically relative. It depends on the language you are speaking."

But while a 1990 study is cited for the first part of the claim, it appears
that the second part is based on conjecture? Nor do I see mention of these
more recent studies about more general recall effects (sorry, I can't recall
the citations myself). Having said that, the conjecture does seem plausible
- it is possible that recall effects actually serve to exaggerate linguistic
effects - but I'm curious whether any research has been done to investigate
this?

Cheers,

Kerim

On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 1:45 AM, Woolard, Kathryn <kwoolard at ucsd.edu> wrote:

> >Those who followed the discussion of Guy Deutscher's book on Whorf and
> >linguistic relativity
> >might be interested in a thoughtful commentary by Nick Enfield (senior
> >staff scientist at Max Planck Institute & Professor of Ethnolinguistics
> >at Radboud University Nijmegen), posted recently on the ICCI website:
> >
> >
> http://www.cognitionandculture.net/Nick-Enfield-s-blog/an-action-suit-not-
> >a-straightjacket-whorf-on-language-and-deutscher-on-whorf.html
>
> Earlier comments can be found on the SLA blog:
>
> http://linguisticanthropology.org/blog/2010/09/01/linguistic-relativity-who
> rf-linguistic-anthropology/
>
>
> Best wishes,
> Kit Woolard
>



-- 

*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