4 ms·
This is just a toy experiment that shows causal relationships between thought and language can exist. You can't look at the arbitrary number of 50ms and say, "
by jonahx 8y ago
This is just a toy experiment that shows causal relationships between thought and language can exist. You can't look at the arbitrary number of 50ms and say, "Well, it seems small, the effects aren't important."
The point is that influence is there, working away all the time in thousands of ways we don't understand. Maybe it all adds up to nothing. But the "small differences" in experiments like these don't prove that. You could have hugely important global effects while still seeing small experimental differences for something like reaction time to shades of blue.
- canjobear 8y agoThe entire experimental literature on linguistic relativity is characterized by tiny effects and failures to replicate. Maybe the tiny, inconsistent effects do add up to something. Maybe there are hugely important global effects. But no one has ever identified them in a reproducible way.
- jonahx 8y agoFair enough. I just noticed this is your field. So is it your opinion that Sapir Whorf is fundamentally just not true? What is happening when we learn a new concept or new word and start seeing things differently or noticing something more often? In your opinion what is the correct way to think about that if it's not language influencing thought/perception?
- canjobear 8y agoI do think language has a dramatic effect on thought, with the caveat that most human languages are pretty much similar in what they are capable of expressing, because all human languages serve basically the same purposes. So when you learn a new concept via language, it can have a dramatic effect on your life. But whether you learn it in English or Russian isn't going to make a huge difference, because they aren't that different in terms of what they can express easily. For example, if you take examples of so-called "untranslateable" words, usually you can translate them pretty easily. German has the word "Fernweh" which means longing for a distant place in the same way that nostalgia means longing for home. No direct English equivalent, yet I was able to express it in English in a few words with no trouble. We have yet to find a word which is completely untranslateable, or a word in one language which could only be translated into another language by means of hundreds and hundreds of words. So language can have a big effect without the differences between human languages being so important. Similar logic to the Invariance Theorem for Kolmogorov complexity[0], which essentially states that the programming language you use to calculate the complexity (description length) of an object doesn't matter much, because Turing-complete languages can all simulate each other. Human languages are capable of simulating each other very well. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity#Invariance_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity#Invarian...
- delian66 8y ago>> We have yet to find a word which is completely untranslateable, or a word in one language which could only be translated into another language by means of hundreds and hundreds of words. Do we? How do you explain the existance of words like "get", "fuck", "buffalo", "dharma", "karma", "tao", "таковам"? Each of these have numerous meanings, which could individually be translatable in another language with very short phrases, but if you want to translate the general cluster you will need pages and pages in a dictionary I think ...
- yorwba 8y agoThe only time you need more than one of the possible meanings at a time is when you want to make a pun. When translating, you'd have to explain both meanings, ruining the fun, but it's not a real barrier to expressing the content.
- delian66 8y agoDo you think translating poetry (vs technical documentation) is easy?
- dorchadas 8y agoPoetry is so often cultural, and deals why certain things like rhyme and meter which influences that. It can be translated easily - the hard part is trying to keep all the cultural connotations of a word and the structure of the poem.
- kingofhdds 8y agoIt really depends on one's knowledge/skill/experience in a particular field, so there's no "vs".
- jonahx 8y agoGreat answer and I love the Kolmogorov analogy. > German has the word "Fernweh" which means longing for a distant place in the same way that nostalgia means longing for home. While I agree almost any concept can be translated in a phrase or sentence, I do still wonder if the difference between a single word and a phrase can be substantial. In the sense that you are more likely to use and think of a single word that really nails the description of a feeling or situation. To take the canonical example of schadenfreude, I definitely "saw" that situation more often after learning the word, even though the concept, expressed less succinctly, wasn't novel to me. Poetic or catchy phrases can have the same effect. Or an undue persuasive effect: "If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit."
- limbicsystem 8y agoTo be fair, there have been >some< replications. My favourite is Gilbert et al, PNAS, 2006 where they more or less replicate the same effect with a different colour set in English speakers >AND< show that it is stronger in the left hemisphere (consistent with it being linked to language). http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/pubs/ai/whorfhypothesis06.pdf http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/pubs/ai/whorfhypothesis06.pdf