TOK Essay

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

(Language Determinism)

Salwa Alamir

11 IB


Edward Sapir and, his pupil, Benjamin Lee Whorf, were two linguists studying language determinism in the first quarter of the twentieth century. They eventually joined forces and founded a hypothesis known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Their research led to one question of vital importance; does language determine the way we think? This question was later on morphed into claims which then resulted in further discussion of the matter.

        The hypothesis itself was divided into two parts; the strong version, stating that language determines the way we think, and the weaker version, which states that while language does not determine absolutely how we think, it does influence how we perceive the world, how we approach problems, and how we remember.

        Evidence supporting the weaker version of the hypothesis is a number of studies that "showed that when asked to remember nonsense shapes, people who had been given a name for that shape remembered it better than those people who had not been given a name for it. And names helped even more when they helped make sense of the nonsense shape… Labels help us better to distinguish between things, and help us pull things out of our memory." Even Charles Hocket, a famous linguist supported this version of the hypothesis by saying: "languages differ not so much as to what CAN be said in the, but rather as to what is relatively easy to say in them". One knowledge claim can also use this evidence as an argument, and can therefore be used as further backup to this partition of the hypothesis.

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        The claim states that: "we dissect nature along the lines led down by our native language". It is continued with "we cut up, organize it into concepts and ascribe significance as we do". This claim summarizes the previously mentioned study, with the only difference being that the study involved shapes and the claim implicates nature. Personally, I agree with the claim, for instance, Pintupi (an Australian language), has several words to describe hole. That is how they "dissect nature along the lines led down" by their "native language". Another example is Hopi (a language of the American Indians) where time ...

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