Re: OT: Helen Keller & Whorf-Sapir

Samuel Rivier wrote:

>Or my own hypothesis, which I held throughout my
>Cultural Linguistics class, much to my professor's
>dismay, which is that Sapir and Whorf are dumbasses
>and language has little to no influence on thought.
____________________________
Then how do you explain the results of the Kay-Kempton experiment from 1984
with the Tarahumara Indians, or the findings regarding spatial orientation
systems in Tzeltal and Guugu Yimidhirr as reported by Levinson?  Based on
my analysis of the recent writings of Gumperz, Lucy, Levinson, and others,
I'd say the evidence is quite strong is support of the "weak" version of
the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.  And one solid read through Lakoff's "Women,
Fire, and Dangerous Things" should convince any intelligent person that the
grammar and lexico-semantic categories of one's language are an influencing
filter between our subconscious (or pre-linguistic) conceptions and the
conscious thoughts we espouse.

--John Quijada