WHORFIAN THEORY AND LANGUAGE

WHORFIAN THEORY AND LANGUAGE IntroductionLanguage is such a powerfull toll in the human nature . Many claim that is this characteristic that really distinguishes from other animals such as primates .The acquisition and development of language could be traced back in our achestors past . Enviroment influences and survival demands made the brain develop more and that how we managed to develop speech and other ways of communication .Psychology always had a big enigma regarding the influence of language to cognition and human rational mind. Many theories have been proposed .This presentation will focus on the WHORFIAN theory by describing its main points and various findings from research and experiments on this area of psychology ( psycholinguistics).

Whorfian Sapir theoryWhorf was a linguistic student in 1950 USA. According to him language influences the ways that members of a culture see the world He made research on native americans and language . Developed the theory of Language Relativism .2 versions (Eysenck (2005).Strong version Language Determinism Strong hypothesis claims that language determine totally cognition and perception and limits their understanding .This means that every language operates strictly in this constraining range of abilities .People with different languages think differently .Several experiments on colour categorisation , spatial abilities and memory were conducted with diverse results .Eysenck (2005)Research and evidence of strong theory Research by Hoffman ,Lau and Jonhson (1987) on english and chinese bilinguals on description of persons showed evidence for the strong hypothesis .They had to read descriptions of persons and then to decribe them freely

The results were that both cultures used different ways to describe the persons and mainly used cultural stereotypic adjectives and thus chinese and English people made different conclusions . Eysenck (2005)

Experiments on spatial reasoningDifferences on spatial reasoning and understanding through languages Pedderson et al (1998) made an experiment with spatial tasks . Two categories relative system ( up ,down , left , right ) and absolute system ( north,south east ,west ).Participants had to do some spatial tasks by using either system .Results : participants choice determined by spatial understanding of their language.Eysenck ( 2005)Experiments on Colour CategorizationStrong Hypothesis calims that exist basic colour categories which are universal .People know only colours that they have a words in their language .Categorical Perception : People understand better colours which are in different categories than the same.Robertson et al (2000)

Robertson at al (2000)Robertson et al (2000) Tested English participants and Berino natives English have colour categories of blue and green Berino have different .Participants were presented with 3 stimuli colours and had to select the most similarResults : Each group answers was constrained from language vocabulary. Eysenck ( 2005)EvaluationThe results of Whorfian hypothesis are conflicting . Today a more relative model is followed .Determinissm theory too constraining not flexible .Research showed also weaker influence of language.Enviromental influences very strong on language Enviromental influnces One should bare in mind that since language has been an evolutionary adaptation achievement by the humans this means that environment of the person asks big influence on the actual development of the particular language . A person from Africa might find it difficult to understand snow white colour because the person has never seen snow for example. Another environmental influence is the example of the people of Solomon islands in the south pacific. Their culture has coconut in great esteem .So these people have 9 words for coconut

The same happens in asia cultures who have different names for rice because they are really depend their nutrition mainly on rice whereas in europe we usually have on word for rice And the brain works with ways that try to be cost effective meaning the brain trys to produce mental products whethever they might be by working with the most fast efficient way References1) Eysenck M, Keane M (2005) Cognitive Psychology Students Handbook , Psychology Press .