Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
1. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis meant the comprehension of the world for an individual determines by the background linguistics system or grammar. In other words, language which use in his or her culture influence his or her thought, idea, view of the world. Explanation of this hypothesis will be more apprehensible by examples.
‘Cultural emphasis’ is one of the popular examples of Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.
Cultural emphasis is if a culture “A” counts more than about certain aspect another culture “B”, the culture “A” tends to have more verity of word that the culture “B” about the aspect.
For example, in English words related family relationship might be 20 or less: aunt, uncle, father, mother, grandmother, grandfather, great grandmother or grandfather, son, daughter, cousin, father/mother in law, kin. In contrast, Korea has about 70 or more, which is a natural result as Confucianism was widely spread in Korea.
Another obvious example to explain about Sapri-Whorf Hypothesis is “time”, and “space”. In the book, Whorf have studied to explain his hypothesis with “time” which is the most common nouns in the English language according to the Lera Boroditsky’s lecture.
The Indo-Europeans (most western people) view the time in three major tenses-‘past, present, and future’. Even though ‘past’ and ‘future’ is an abstract concept compare to ‘present’, the language of western people consider ‘past’ and ‘future’ s real as ‘present’. Therefore, the Indo-Europeans have a cultural form of time units(century, decade, year, month, day, hour, minute even seconds), and from that form there are various other cultural form as records, histories, calendars, and even stock markets.
However, the Hopis has different concept of time: objective, and subjective. The ‘objective’ is a fact which exist, and the ‘subjective’ is a state is becoming. In other words, rather than past, present, future, there are things becoming that has individual life rhythms like growing, declining, or changing as
‘Cultural emphasis’ is one of the popular examples of Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.
Cultural emphasis is if a culture “A” counts more than about certain aspect another culture “B”, the culture “A” tends to have more verity of word that the culture “B” about the aspect.
For example, in English words related family relationship might be 20 or less: aunt, uncle, father, mother, grandmother, grandfather, great grandmother or grandfather, son, daughter, cousin, father/mother in law, kin. In contrast, Korea has about 70 or more, which is a natural result as Confucianism was widely spread in Korea.
Another obvious example to explain about Sapri-Whorf Hypothesis is “time”, and “space”. In the book, Whorf have studied to explain his hypothesis with “time” which is the most common nouns in the English language according to the Lera Boroditsky’s lecture.
The Indo-Europeans (most western people) view the time in three major tenses-‘past, present, and future’. Even though ‘past’ and ‘future’ is an abstract concept compare to ‘present’, the language of western people consider ‘past’ and ‘future’ s real as ‘present’. Therefore, the Indo-Europeans have a cultural form of time units(century, decade, year, month, day, hour, minute even seconds), and from that form there are various other cultural form as records, histories, calendars, and even stock markets.
However, the Hopis has different concept of time: objective, and subjective. The ‘objective’ is a fact which exist, and the ‘subjective’ is a state is becoming. In other words, rather than past, present, future, there are things becoming that has individual life rhythms like growing, declining, or changing as
References: Reference: Darko-Adara (2009.04.20) Psychology Concert, StarBooks, Seoul