examples and debates
The 'empty' drum explosion. (Pinker argues the worker was fooled by his eyes, not language).
What example does Whorf use to claim that linguistic labels lead people to misinterpret dangerous situations?
Language
What guides how we see and understand social reality?
Encoded in the lexicon and the syntax of language.
In where is the culture encoded?
As war
How is arguing viewed metaphorically?
Context / Setting of the culture
Besides word for word translation, what else do you need in order to understand an unkown native language?
The difficulty of translating concepts across different cultures.
What experience of struggling with a second language supports linguistic relativity?
Distinct worlds.
What do different language habits create instead of just using different labels for the same world?
Edward Sapir
Who developed the theory of linguistic relativity?
“Universally human”
How are emotions considered?
Malinowski
What was the name of the anthropologist that studied the conversations of the Trobriand Islanders?
Pinker's translation of "He walks".
What example did Pinker use to show that literal translation makes English sound odd?
Grammar
According to Whorf, what main part of language shapes our ideas?
The example of “The Stone”
What example is used to explain how different languages describe the same scene?
interest, joy, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame/shyness, guilt.
What are the fundamental human emotions?
Social structure
Besides words alone, where does the power of ritual reside?
Whorf never interviewed a real Apache speaker.
Why did critics say Whorf’s ideas about Apache thought were just a guess?
An implicit agreement.
What unwritten rule forces speakers of a language to categorize the world in the same way?
Through Idiomatic expressions
Through what do we reflect the way we think?
Polish
Which language does not have a word corresponding exactly to the English word disgust?
Meaning
What is public that makes culture be public as well?
"A stone is a stone whatever you call it."
What phrase shows that real physical objects exist no matter what language you speak?
The Linguistic Relativity Principle.
What rule says that people with different grammars see the same event differently?
Metaphorical nature
What is the nature of our everyday conceptual system?
A folk taxonomy, not an objective or culture-free analytical framework.
What are English terms of emotion?
The enlargement of the universe of human discourse
According to Geertz, what would be the aim of anthropology?