The document discusses the linguistic determinism theory proposed by Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It states that the structure of a language affects its speakers' worldview or cognition. Specifically, it introduces the idea that language determines or influences thought, that language categories and structures condition the ways in which people think, and that speakers of different languages think and perceive reality in different ways. The document uses the example of Eskimo languages having different words for types of snow to illustrate how languages can categorize the world differently.

1. Linguistic DeterminismThe Sapir-Whorf hypothesisCulture1Language culture & thought

2. What Is Linguistic Determinism?2What is determined?What is doing the determinining?What in language is doing the determining?Why is this a structuralist approach?

3. Boas, Sapir, and Whorf3Boas: “… it determines those aspects of experience that must be expressed…”Sapir: Language is a guide to "social reality." Whorf: We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. Sometimes called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

4. A difficult concept put simply4We use language to interpret and organise realityThrough language we transmit our cultureThrough language we categorise the world we live inLanguage AFFECTS and REFLECTS reality

5. The Whorfian Hypothesis (1)5What is a hypothesis?Whorf attempted to provide examples of language differences and not simply made the claim.Whorf actually claimed that some languages may be superior to European languages.SAE

6. The Whorfian Hypothesis (2)6‘Are our concepts of time, space and matter given in substantially the same form by experience to all men [sic], or are they in part conditioned by the structure of particular languages?’Answer: This is the Whorfian Hypothesis

7. The Whorfian Hypothesis (3)7Are there traceable affinities between cultural and behavioral norms and large scale linguistic patterns?Answer: “I [Whorf] would be the last to pretend that there is anything so definite as a correlation between culture and language and especially between ethnological rubrics such as agricultural, hunting etc, and linguistic ones like inflected, synthetic and isolating.

8. Lets deal with … snow!8Franz Boaz in The Handbook of North American Indians (1911) said that Eskimos have four different words for snow, where English has just one.aput for snow on the groundqana for falling snowPiqsirpoqfor drifting snowQimuqsuqfor snowdrift

9. Lets deal with … snow!9The real point though refers to the way languages divide up the world. Eskimo does use different words to name snow that’s falling and snow that’s already on the ground. For example (Central Alaskan Yupik):qanuk = falling snow, snowflakeaniu = snow on the groundIn English what are we referring to when we say ‘Look at the snow!’Does having a single word mean you can’t conceive of the subtypes of the same thing?Does the lack of a common term inhibit thinking about two things as similar?