The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The weak version: some elements of language, e.g. in vocabulary & grammatical system, influence speakers’ perceptions & can affect their attitudes & behavior.

The strong version:language is ultimately directive in this process.

“We see & hear & otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language & the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation”

It is believed that language & speakers’ perceptions of experience are intertwined (Bakhtin). “There is no such thing as experience outside the embodiment in signs… It is not experience that organizes expression, but the other way around – expression organizes experience”. An Individual’s thought is guided by possibilities offered by his/her language.

E.G. English speaker – I must go there. Navajo speaker – It is only good that I shall go there. English speaker – I make the horse run. Navajo speaker – The horse is running for me.

English & Navajo have different use of events, different attitudes about people’s rights & obligations. Navajo speakers give all being the ability to decide for themselves without control from others.

Cognitive linguistics

It emphasizes the idea that culture results from sharing of individuals’ lived experience.

Culture provides us with cultural presuppositions.

Cultural presuppositions are culture-specific background assumptions against which an action, theory, expression or utterance makes sense.

They are expressed & transmitted through language. The participants in speech interaction have may have different cultural presuppositions.

Types:

1. Shared knowledge of facts, events, objects that are significant for this culture;

2. Culture-specific perception of universal concepts such as time, space, etc.;

3. Culture-specific understanding of appropriate attitudes, relations between people, goals & wishes, etc. (e.g. joking or insulting);

4. Culture-specific ideas of appropriate verbal behavior;

5. Culture-bound values & evaluations;

6. Associations caused by common historical experience, way of life, everyday routine, etc.

All these cultural presuppositions are manifested with the help of some verbal means.