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Whor-Whorf Hypothesis Analysis

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Words and languages spoken affect human perception of things. Words are weapons mightier than swords that can change the entire human psyche. In a world where humans co-exist surrounded by social activity, language becomes one of our main mediums of expression. Emoto’s water experiment observed the power of words, as water stamped with positive words created far more aesthetically pleasing crystalline molecular structures, than did the water stamped with negative phrases. (High Existence)
Humans form mental models of the world using a system of beliefs, which also include their underlying assumptions. The real world they perceive is actually a cognitive creation in their minds; a mix of their thoughts, beliefs and external stimuli. Our senses only provide us with limited information; inferences fill up the remaining gaps. Perception and expression are two very different things. Languages play an integral role in affecting the perceptions and building blocks of reality that we exist in, and in the end show through expression the world we have perceived. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is a popularization of the principle that one’s language shapes …show more content…

Stephen Pinker, the main critic of this hypothesis argued that it is no more than a myth claiming that Whorf’s hypothesis is “wrong, all wrong” (Pinker, pg.57) and that the “idea that thought is the same thing as language is … a conventional absurdity” (Pinker, pg. 57) The first critique is the idea that language is only a reflection of a thought, it is not a factor affecting thought. As Pinker (1995) also observed, if one word can correspond to two thoughts, the thoughts cannot be words. A person thinking of spring would not be confused about whether he is thinking of the season or something flying off a table, so the initial thought process is direct and unaffected by the language used to merely describe it. (Yee, What Whorf Really

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