Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The controversial Sapir-Whorf hypothesis^ states that there is a direct relationship between the categories that are available in a language and the way the speakers of that language think and act. While if it were true that Ianguage completely determined thought, people would never have any thoughts that they could not express (and we know that's not true), there have nevertheless been some suggestive experiments in this area. For exampie, it was recently shown that one Amazonian tribe without words for numŽ bers greater than two cannot count reliably higher than two or three.5 Skeptics have pointed out that causation may run the other way: the tribe never developed words for numbers because they never needed to develop the concepts.6

Notes:

The idea that restrictions in language restrict our ability to think.

Folksonomies: language hypothesis

Taxonomies:
/religion and spirituality/islam (0.701762)
/education/language learning (0.602149)
/education/english as a second language (0.366606)

Keywords:
controversial Sapir-Whorf hypothesis^ (0.911489 (neutral:0.000000)), Amazonian tribe (0.612328 (neutral:0.000000)), suggestive experiments (0.602345 (negative:-0.399503)), direct relationship (0.573783 (neutral:0.000000)), numŽ bers (0.557529 (neutral:0.000000)), language (0.429366 (positive:0.278707)), way (0.387580 (neutral:0.000000)), words (0.383060 (neutral:0.000000)), causation (0.377437 (neutral:0.000000)), Skeptics (0.371135 (neutral:0.000000)), idea (0.368695 (positive:0.278707)), ability (0.362924 (positive:0.278707)), states (0.351010 (neutral:0.000000)), categories (0.350678 (neutral:0.000000)), speakers (0.350272 (neutral:0.000000)), people (0.348300 (negative:-0.341112)), exampie (0.348287 (neutral:0.000000)), thoughts (0.348120 (negative:-0.341112)), area (0.347221 (negative:-0.399503))

Entities:
Ianguage:Person (0.700615 (neutral:0.000000))

Concepts:
Thought (0.988457): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Cognition (0.950283): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Language (0.893391): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Mind (0.866862): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Idea (0.811038): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Critical thinking (0.774030): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago
Linguistic relativity (0.698446): dbpedia | freebase
Empiricism (0.697282): dbpedia | freebase

 Mind Performance Hacks
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book:  Hale-Evans, Ron (2006-02-06), Mind Performance Hacks, O'Reilly Media, Inc., Retrieved on 2013-12-29
  • Source Material [books.google.com]
    • Folksonomies: self-help


    Triples

    25 JAN 2014

     Language Impacts Thought

    Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis > Example/Illustration > Example of How Language Affects Thought
    Example of how language biases the way we think in science.
    Folksonomies: science language example
    Folksonomies: science language example