A bit more info for mulling over in respect of the debate on linguistic relativity and determinism. This piece of research written up briefly here Running Words Together: The Science Behind Cross-linguistic Psychology tells us, among other things: "Despite the vast differences between the four languages, however, all participants used distinct words to describe when the student was walking and to identify precisely when she began running. These results indicate cross-linguistic commonalities in naming patterns for locomotion and help to support the notion of certain universal rules and constraints in all languages.
“We found that converging naming patterns reflect structure in the world, not only acts of construction by observers,” Malt stated. “On a broader level, the data reveal a shared aspect of human experience that is present across cultures and reflected in every language.” So the first bit of the article shows how language can affect thinking, the latter shows how reality tends to form language. I think that this is still coming up in favour of critical realism.
No comments:
Post a Comment