Language Relativism

The Aristotelian tradition

• Aristotle questioned the existence of absolute concepts and argued that, whether concrete or abstract, concepts can only be deduced from our experience of them, i.e. there is no absolute quality of 'whiteness', only white houses, flowers or whatever. Knowledge, therefore, must be based on what is observed.

St Augustine

• Seemed to maintain the Platonic idea that one is aware of the nature of the thing named (res) before one knows its name (nomen or uerbum

• But also suggested that we learn language empirically, or from our experience of watching others use it, is more in the Aristotelian tradition.

Other philosophers

• Descartes- our understanding of reality must be based on empirical observation,

• Locke- the human being as a tabula rasa, believed that the names of things were acquired empirically.

• Empiricism in the late 18th and 19th centuries also turned the focus of language study away from anything metaphysical, and towards an interest in language as an expression of cultures and societies through history.

Humboldt (1836)

• Key figure in the history of language relativism• In fact believed in an essential universal language

underlying all known, or at least all Indo-European, languages.

• Theory - individual languages usually did not measure up to this ideal norm, although Sanskrit probably came as near as it was possible.

• Interested in the formation rather than the origins of language

Humboldt (1836)

• Convinced that there was a strong connection between language and national character and culture.

• Claimed thought was conditioned by the language one spoke.

• Certain languages were better equipped for thought than others.

Racism and language relativism

• Are some languages better equipped than others for thought? Philosophy? Science? Literature?

• Are some languages more suitable for expressing feelings? Music? Love?

• Why do we have these ideas / prejudices?

Sapir (1921) American Anthropologist

• Pointed out that difference in culture or mentality is merely that - difference - and does not imply a qualitative judgement on the language or the people who speak it.

• " We know of no people that is not possessed of a fully developed language.... The lowliest South African bushman speaks in the forms of a rich symbolic system that is in essence perfectly comparable to the speech of the cultivated Frenchman".

Whorf (1956)

• Goes even further to avoid accusations of racism (in favour of European supremacy)

• "the eminence of our European tongues and thinking habits proceeds from nothing more [than prestige based on human economics and history]

• Many preliterate ("primitive") communities, far from being subrational, may show the human mind functioning on a higher and more complex plane of rationality than among civilized men"

• "We do not know that civilization is synonymous with rationality".

Boas (1917 and 1920),

• Study of American Indian languages• Importance of studying these languages if the

cultures of these people were to be understood• Warns against influence from colonizing

languages, as well as the effect of the languages on each other for historical and social reasons

• Anthropology - interesting work on religious, political and kinship structures

Sociolinguistics

• Bernstein (1971-4)• Halliday (1979) • Language can help or hinder:– Educational development – Integration in the society we live in

Others

• Lado (1974)• Trudgill (1974) • Miller (1983)• Tannen (1994) • Show how far attitudes towards things like

race, class and sexual discrimination are reflected in language we use, often quite unconsciously

Political correctness

• Never use ‘he’ to mean ‘he’ + ‘she’• Avoid gender stereotypes – e.g. presuming

doctors, politicians, lawyers etc are male, and secretaries, cleaning personnel and nurses are female

• Avoid derogatory expressions for people based on race, class, religion, sex, sexual orientation etc – think of some in your language

Philosophy and language in the 20th c.

• Logical Positivists – Vienna Circle• Ordinary Language Philosophers• Early Wittgenstein• Late Wittgenstein• Saussure and Wittgenstein chose the

metaphor of a game of chess to describe language

Austin (1963)• Theory of 'speech-acts• 'sayings- 'constatives' (e.g. statements, or

descriptions),• 'doings' or 'performatives' (e.g. promises or

warnings). • Later (1970 and 1971) – – 'illocutionary acts', which covered statements,

descriptions, promises and warnings, etc., as somehow establishing the speaker's attitude

– 'perlocutionary acts', like persuading, convincing, frightening, boring, amusing, or annoying, which aim at affecting the hearer, usually, as the terms suggest, by producing some form of emotion.

Gardner (1987: 71)

• “We no longer dream of deducing science from sense data: the scientist (whether philosopher or psychologist) now conducts research in which experimental subjects become the preferred route to discovering how any individual makes sense of his experiences"

Philosophical argument

• Most extreme form of language relativism • Only the individual can ever hope to fully

understand what he/she actually means• And even then…….!

Relativism

• See Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativism

• Compare moral relativism, aesthetic relativism, social constructionism, cultural relativism, and cognitive relativism.

Terminology of language relativism

• Comparative philology – study of historical development and mutual influences between languages

• Contrastive linguistics – comparison of languages lexicons and structures for the effect of teaching languages and translating

• Comparative linguistics – comparison languages in order > language universals

Interesting people

• George Lakoff - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lakoff

• Steven Pinker - http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/about/index.html

• Debora Tannen - https://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/tannend/

Interesting webpages

• M.A.K Halliday – Wikipedia• Systemic Functional Linguistics

http://www.isfla.org/Systemics/• http://minerva.ling.mq.edu.au/resource/

VirtuallLibrary/Publications/sfg_firststep/SFG%20intro%20New.html