Introducing
Prezi AI.
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
Loading…
Linguistic Relativity
36
Transcript
Linguistic Relativity
What Is Linguistic Relativity?
- Languages differ from in important ways from one another.
- The structure of a language affects the way its speakers see and understand the world.
- Therefore, speakers of very different languages conceptualize the world in very different ways.
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
- Benjamin Whorf was Edward Sapir's student at Yale.
- Edward Sapir believed that
- Whorf made a bold claim
- The structure of a language tends to condition the way its speakers think
- It follows that speakers of different languages view the world in different ways due to the different structures of their languages
Newspeak
Homer
- 1984 Language
- “The whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought”
- Designed to reduce people's thoughts
- They cannot commit thoughtcrime if they do not have certain words
- Good example of linguistic relativity
- Introduced linguistic relativity to popular culture
- Did not have the same concept of color as we do
- Descriptions were vibrant
- Used word that meant black or white throughout his poetry
- Rarely used color descriptors
- When he did, he used colors as descriptors of darkness and lightness
Importance of Structure
- Language affects the way we think
- We should focus on learning efficient language structure
- If we improve the structure of our language in our speech and our writing, we can improve the structure and efficiency of our thought processes.
Choose a template
Learn more about creating dynamic, engaging presentations with Prezi