Arguments against Sapir―Whorf Hypothesis.docVIP

Arguments against Sapir―Whorf Hypothesis 　　【Abstract】One long-standing claim concerning the relationship between language and culture of a language is that languages determine the way speakers of that language view the world. This is what the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis claims. However， it is too absolute from the view of language and world view and second language acquisition. 【Key words】Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis； language and world view； second language acquisition 1. Question The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis has two versions. The strong version emphasizes the decisive role of language as the shaper of our thinking patterns. The weak version suggests the correlation between language， culture， and thought， but the cross-cultural differences thus produced in our ways of thinking are relative， rather than categorical（Hu Jiang， 2002）. It is too absolute and makes our perception model upside down. Thus， the main concern of this paper focuses on the arguments against the strong version of Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. 2. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Sapir believed language and culture were inextricably in a close relationship. One could not understand the other without some knowledge of it（Carroll， 1966）. The strong version expresses the idea that the linguistic model determines peoples way of thinking， and the mode of thinking shapes peoples world view. 3. Arguments against Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Since the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis can be analyzed and applied in the following four parts， namely， language and world view， language and grammatical structure， language and translation and second language acquisition. This paper mainly focuses on language and world view and second language acquisition. 3.1 Language and world view We get the viewpoint that the language system provides specifics of one’s world view. Thus， we can deduce that people speaking the same language may have the same world view， including all aspects of life. On contrary， people in different speech c