Robert,
I have written a short essay on this subject, which my comments summarize.
These concepts are based on a study of George Lakoff & Mark Johnson,
Metaphors We Live By (University of Chicago, 1980)[example of "argument is
war"]; John B. Carroll, Language Thought & Reality (MIT, 1956), especially
Benjamin Lee Whorf, Science and Linguistics (cf. p. 207f., 1940)[example of
"I clean it with a ramrod" in Shawnee]; Peter Atkins, Galileo's Finger: The
Ten Great Ideas of Science (Oxford Univ. Press, 2003) [example of "heat" as
"caloric"] and a few other works upon which they are based. The essay is on
my website as support for my present cautious approach to semantics:
http://userpages.burgoyne.com/bdespain/grammar/gramexg.htm
Bruce
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Yates" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2008 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: Form and function
Again, I wish I knew what this meant. A concrete example would be helpful.
>>> "Bruce D. Despain" <[log in to unmask]> 02/24/08 4:39 PM >>>
Scientists even today want to build their models of the real world, but are
forever deceived by the metaphors and actual designations of the words of
language. It was apparently after a great deal of study in aboriginal
languages in America that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis came about. I believe
this was an additional attempt to maintain the difference between what
language tells us and what the instruments of science tell us. Language
sets up our disposition toward how we perceive the world.
****
If each language sets up a different disposition toward how we perceive the
world and scientists are "forever deceived by the metaphors and designation
of the words in language," does that mean that the nature of DNA is really
different if the scientist's native language is Hindi or Japanese or
Chinese?
Or, Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity can only be really understood in
the original German.
Or, really there is nothing behind Darwin's Theory of Evolution because it
is merely made up of a set of metaphors in English.
I would love to have some concrete examples of how a Chinese (or any other
language) speaker really perceives the world around us differently than
those of us who speak English.
Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
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