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Name Professor’s Name Course Date Linguistic Determinism Question One The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic determinism states that individual thoughts are determined by the categories set by their language. The things they think about is wholly influenced by their language. A lesser advanced definition of the hypothesis claims that the difference in thought is majorly contributed by the different languages spoken by people. This therefore results in the varied expressions of views about a particular subject. Further clarifications on the influence of thought are attributed to the different language spoken. The basis therefore preposterous to think that language had an effect on the varied colors perceived by different speakers. Consequently humans all over the world use the same criteria to color their worlds and as a result this limits the vocabularies developed. The basic idea is normally founded on the basic colours of the fire engine red grass green sky blue and the lemon yellows. If sixty four different colours were presented among different language speaking individuals approximately eight colors will be agreed upon to be the same throughout the various languages. [...]
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The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis of Linguistic Determinism Read Pinker on Language and Thought (From the beginning to Chap. 3 until the middle of p. 73: “… but a mental graphics system, with operations that rotate, scan, zoom, pan, displace, and fill in patterns of contours”). Then answer both of the following questions, each in a single but well-developed paragraph (about 200-300 words each). Of course, you may include some very brief quotes from the book, but these must be clearly presented as quotations. 1. What is the “Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic determinism” and why does the imaginary language “Newspeak” which George Orwell describes in his novel 1984 provide a perfect illustration of that hypothesis? 2. According to the the “strong” version of Sapir-Whorf, the fact that different languages divide the color spectrum differently means that speakers of different languages perceive colors in the world very differently. Explain in some detail how Pinker responds to this claim
Subject Area: Linguistics
Document Type: Reports
