Sapir’s understanding of language

Language is a purely human & non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions & desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.

To speak is to communicate ideas according to the traditional system of a particular society.

Speech is an acquired, cultural function. Speech is a human activity that varies from social group to social group, because it is a purely historical heritage of the group. It is the product of long continued social usage. It varies as all creative effort does: religion, customs, beliefs, arts.

Language has its psycho-physical basis, but it wrong to say that language is localized in frames.

We have no organs of speech – there are organs that are used in the production of speech sounds.

Language is a fully formed functional system within man’s psychic constitution.

The essence of language consists in the assigning of conventional, voluntarily articulated sounds to the diverse elements of experience.

To be communicated experience has to be referred to a class which is accepted by the community as an identity.

The single significant element of a speech is the symbol of a ‘concept’ – a convenient capsule of thought that embraces thousand of distinct experiences.

The actual flow of speech is a record of the setting of these concepts into mutual relations. Sapir is strongly on the opinion that feeling that people can think without language is an allusion. Thought may be a natural domain apart from the artificial domain of speech, but speech would seem to be the only road we know that leads it. All of this does not mean that language works before thinking. On the contrary, thinking is a kind of psychic overflow sets in at the beginning of linguistic expression. The birth of a new concept is predicted by a more or less extended use of old linguistic material. As soon as the word is at hand, we feel that the concept is ours for handling. Not until we own the symbol do we hold the key to the understanding to the concept.

Whorf: Whether grammatical structures provide frame work for orienting speaker’s thoughts & behavior. The influence of language can be both through the vocabulary & through more complex grammatical structures.

In the following English sentences Hopi people would use a different word for “that”:

1. I see that it is red – the speaker makes a conclusion by direct sensory awareness

2. I see that it is new – the speaker makes inferences

3a I hear that it is red – the speaker reports a fact providing by someone else.

3b I hear that it is new – the same

Conclusion: Hopi people are directed by grammatical requirements of their language to notice underlying causes of their knowledge of things: through direct senses, through inferences, through reported facts. Speakers of English need not to pay attention to such differences (it does not mean that they are never aware of these differences)

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The weak version: some elements of language, e.g. in vocabulary & grammatical system, influence speakers’ perceptions & can affect their attitudes & behavior.

The strong version: language is ultimately directive in this process.

“We see & hear & otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language & the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation”

It is believed that language & speakers’ perceptions of experience are intertwined (Bakhtin). “There is no such thing as experience outside the embodiment in signs… It is not experience that organizes expression, but the other way around – expression organizes experience”. An Individual’s thought is guided by possibilities offered by his/her language.

E.G. English speaker – I must go there. Navajo speaker – It is only good that I shall go there. English speaker – I make the horse run. Navajo speaker – The horse is running for me.

English & Navajo have different use of events, different attitudes about people’s rights & obligations. Navajo speakers give all being the ability to decide for themselves without control from others.

Cognitive linguistics

It emphasizes the idea that culture results from sharing of individuals’ lived experience.

Culture provides us with cultural presuppositions.

Cultural presuppositions are culture-specific background assumptions against which an action, theory, expression or utterance makes sense.

They are expressed & transmitted through language. The participants in speech interaction have may have different cultural presuppositions.

Types:

1. Shared knowledge of facts, events, objects that are significant for this culture;

2. Culture-specific perception of universal concepts such as time, space, etc.;

3. Culture-specific understanding of appropriate attitudes, relations between people, goals & wishes, etc. (e.g. joking or insulting);

4. Culture-specific ideas of appropriate verbal behavior;

5. Culture-bound values & evaluations;

6. Associations caused by common historical experience, way of life, everyday routine, etc.

All these cultural presuppositions are manifested with the help of some verbal means.