[lojban] Re: Experiments in Sapir Whorf

[Colin Wright <lojban@solipsys.co.uk>]

kali9putra@yahoo.com writes:

> SWH is about deep level grammatical categories and ontology, not about
> vocabulary tricks.  (It is still a crock, of course, but at least it is an
> interesting crock).

stevo said:

> What evidence do you have that it's a crock?

Then John E Clifford wrote:

> The negative results of sixty years (more or less, probably more) of
> trying to formulate a testable hypothesis that is even vaguely related
> to what Ed and Ben said.  The best of these (possibly testable) were
> either trivially true (the vocab cases) or blatantly false (the strong
> metaphysical determination cases), and only the latter looked much like
> what the two actually said. Of the rest, the untestable ones (though it
> didn't stop people from claiming to try) yielded no significant results
> (of course) and the testable ones had nought to do with the professor
> and the claims adjuster (and the results were still generally negative).

As with many who have an interest in lojban, this interests me.  It especially 
interests me via computing, mathematics and juggling.  I have experienced 
directly what seem to me to be Whorfian effects.  In mathematics I've used 
language to help find and create mathematical forms that subsequently prove 
to be useful.  In programming, changing the language I use sometimes helping 
to clarify a problem and suggest an algorithm that I subsequently felt would 
not have surfaced using the original language.  In juggling, the development 
of a notation for (a class of) juggling led to the discovery of hundreds of 
previously unknown patterns, and the way people describe patterns has 
significantly changed.  I believe the way people think about juggling changes 
when they learn the notation.

Perhaps I'm not using the SWH in its original form, but certainly every time 
I've talked about the topic with multipolyglots they've looked at me in 
bewilderment, wondering how anyone could believe that choice of language does 
not affect/limit/expand thought.

Some time ago I read an unpublished PhD thesis in which the Minnesota 
Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) was given to confirmed 
English/German bilinguals, once in one language, then later in the other. As 
I recall, and it's been some time, the coordinate bilinguals showed a clear 
shift in their personalities between the languages, the compound bilinguals 
less so.  (I think.  As I say, it's been some time).

The clear thing that I do remember is that there was a definite shift, which 
to me provides evidence that something is definitely happening.

Finally, would you care to comment on how Lera Boroditsky's work is being 
received and its implications?

http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~lera/papers/

Thanks for an interesting discussion.


Colin
-- 
The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately
    in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever.
    -- Lady Bracknell, The Importance of Being Earnest.



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