The principle of linguistic relativity ("Sapir–Whorf hypothesis"): The idea that Language shapes thought and action.
--most anthropologists believe this is true, they just disagree on how much it affects thought


Eskimos have more words for snow than people in the tropics (but the idea that Eskimos have hundreds of words for snow is a myth). Modern skiers have more words for different types of snow than non-skiers.

But the idea that language shapes thought and action goes much deeper than just words. We also need to look at deeper levels of language, such as the grammar of a language.

For example, some languages have different ways of talking about direction. Experiments have shown that these differences can create different responses to the same task. Here Wesch hands a student three items and asks her to put them in the same order in the back of the room as their counterparts in the front of the room. But from left, to right? English speakers put them 50/50 in a particular order, Maya speakers go 90% one way and Dutch speakers go 90% the other way.

In the Papua New Guinea fieldwork, Wesch learned about "Relational Space".



Language and Thought: Grammar

Whorf talked about the use of Individual vs. Mass nouns. Individual nouns....Keys, bottles. Then mass nouns....Oil, Milk. In English, Time is objectified as a mass noun. We have to break up time between hours and minutes and seconds, so that we might quantify that which cannot be "quantified"...( a bit complex) We can say, "I was walking and chewing gum." but in Hopi, time is relative. We would say that we chewed gum before we walked.
In Hopi, time is not objectified, it is relative, and there are no verb tenses (this has been debated, but Whorf's analysis is still worth reading).

Language and Thought: Metaphors

"Metaphors We Live By" book by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980). Examples include our communication as "war". ex. "I already shot down all your points" "You're always attacking my points" "I win." Maybe if we thought of creating rather than destroying in our communication things might be less difficult. Prof. Wesch suggested placing "dance" terms in the place of "war" terms

What about love?
--we speak of love in many ways: as a fluid (filled) as a natural force (swept off her feet) etc.

Perhaps we ought to rethink metaphors like, "I'm falling in love," or "I'm falling out of love," and create love instead. Falling in love implies that we have no control over our situation.

Metaphors of love. What is it? How do we perceive it? If we go through life hoping to "fall in love", what does that mean for us? Could we "Create" love, what if we created love everyday instead of hoped that love would stay?

(Article from the Discovery Health, "Why People Fall in Love" )

Relationships might mean more, people would have a vested intrest in making a love last rather than hoping.

let's apply it to ourselves? maybe we can create ourselves?! maybe rather than "find" ourselves?

Let's create ourselves, find ourselves and lose ourselves.
The importance of "self"

• We talk about finding ourselves/importance of finding ourselves.
• We don't find, we "create!"
  • 1. find yourself 2. lose yourself 3. create yourself

--finding the self and losing the self
--an idea at the heart of Buddhism, discussed in Christianity
--plays Eminem's "Lose Yourself"