Introducing 

Prezi AI.

Your new presentation assistant.

Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.

Loading…
Transcript

Aspects of Language

History

Different aspects of language can affect the relationship between language and thought.

Constructed Language

Around the 1900's many different European movements of constructed languages surged with the hopes of providing an ideal language for different people groups. Most of these movements failed to gain many followers and dissipated, but some like Esperanto and Interlingua are still spoken today. Some people see languages like Interlingua as a stepping-stone to learning Latin-derived languages, but others see the application of an optimal constructed language as a better option because they see these languages as superior to others.

During the 1930's Benjamin Lee Whorf studied linguistics by analyzing indigenous languages at Yale University under professor Edward Sapir. He realized there were major differences between these languages and European languages in the ways reality is conceptualized. From then on, Whorf continued studying these differences in articulation and helped develop the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

  • Grammar- languages have different syntactical patterns that dictate the order of their subjects, objects, and verbs along with more subtle grammatical differences.
  • Lexicon- languages have different vocabularies that can classify and categorize concepts differently. For example, different languages segment the color spectrum differently.
  • Semantics- aside from having different vocabularies, languages also have different meanings and understandings of words.

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that the language individuals first speak directly influences the way that they see and react to the world.

The hypothesis is conceptualized into two branches. The "weak" Sapir-Whorf hypothesis indicates that people's thoughts are just influenced by their native language. This term is called linguistic relativism.

The "strong" Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that native language determines the way individuals think about different concepts.

Universal Language

In light of globalization, some groups of individuals believe that standardization of language would benefit society by providing a reliable form of communication. Universal language ideas range from the establishment of a historic language or the application of a constructed language as the primary language spoken.

Cartoon

Aspects of Language

...continued

This cartoon shows the flip-side of the analysis of the many words Eskimos use for snow suggested in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis . There is not as many words for lawn in English, but it is a similar concept because "suburban white males" tend for their lawn as Eskimos tend for the snow around their houses.

  • Metaphor- languages have different metaphors and metaphors are constructed differently throughout languages.
  • Pragmatics- is the way people act while expressing themselves and while listening during a "concrete speech situation", such as a conversation.

Standardization

There is a variety of people groups that believe in the establishment of a language already spoken as a language spoken across borders. A drastic example is seen in the "Resurrect Isis" movement that suggests that hieroglyphics should be used as a form of communication for people from different countries. A milder and more commonly seen example is seen in the concepts of International English or International Spanish, which suggest that languages spoken in different countries should be standardized. Standardizing these languages would diminish dialect variations that come with regional differences.

The main aspects covered by Whorf in his studies included grammatical and lexicon differences, but all of these are the ones that have been suggested in regards to linguistic determinism and relativism.

Learn more about creating dynamic, engaging presentations with Prezi