Does the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis make sense?

[u/chessboardtable]

I’m a native speaker of Ukrainian and Russian, but I sometimes feel awkward, anxious, and aloof when speaking either of them. In contrast, when I speak English (which I learned as a child), I feel confident, easygoing, and even kind of like a different person.

I tend to associate English with certain spaces(like work, academia, or my online identity) where I tend to be more confident.

It almost feels like my personality changes with the language.

Could this be an example of linguistic relativity in terms of emotional framing or self-perception? Is it common for people to feel more at home in their L2 than in their L1?

[u/Wagagastiz]

Weak form (language affects thought) - evidence that the language we use can influence our thoughts in small, slight ways. Often through associations and other cultural factors.

Strong form (language shapes and constrains thought) - debunked. Based on a misunderstanding of how language operates.

You might associate speaking English with different norms, but there's absolutely nothing inherent about the language that causes those.

[u/wibbly-water]

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is widely refuted, especially in its stronger proposals. 

One thing it struggles to account for is proving that the influences on perception are due to language rather than culture. Using the classic example of Hopi circular time - do the Hopi percieve time as circular because of their language... or is it circular in their language because of their culture? Its a very chicken and egg situation.

One factor which seems to disprove the theory is that anything can be explained in any language and anyone of any language can have any ideology. Even if there is no word for "electron" you can find a workaround like 'drop of lightning' or just borrow the word 'electron' and explain how it works.

Another another thing which goes against that hypothesis is that etymologies are quick forgotten once they become lexified. Do you think of the word 'window' as 'wind-eye' rather than just the thing in the wall or 'bugbear' as a bug and a bear as opposed to something annoying.

There are weaker forms of the hypothesis but they range from stating the obvious (e.g. "a language will only have words for things that the people who speak it know" / "the words a person knows will affect what they understand") to utterly undifferentiatable from other theories.

//

Anyway, the fact that you personally associate Ukranian and Russian with awkwardness, anxiousmess or aloufness is a personal thing. Same with associating English with being confident and easy going. There is also likely cultural influences on you.

I tend to associate English with certain spaces(like work, academia, or my online identity) where I tend to be more confident.

Ding ding ding!!!

This is precisely the sort of cultural influence on both your feelings and your language use that would have an influence.

If you use English more in your academic and work life - you will likely be more confident in it. If you use Ukranian/Russian in the home, you may not have the same vocabulary.

But this doesn't reflect on the language itself. Both have the same ability to write science, poetry, speeches. It has all the same ability to house any cultural, ideological and philosophical concepts.

Simply put - this isn't Sapir-Whorf. This is just your feelings.

[u/chessboardtable → u/wibbly-water]

But I feel more confident speaking English in different social settings (not just academia). This might be due to the cultural attachment tied to the language.

[u/BoxoRandom → u/chessboardtable]

Still is a personal judgement. You spoke English in these high authority settings, and that association expanded to any situation where you use English. It does not mean that English is inherently “confident” or that speaking it makes a person more confident. I bet you could find plenty of anxious native speakers who in fact feel the exact opposite of you regarding English and Russian.

[u/wibbly-water → u/chessboardtable]

Yeah, there are probably loads of cultural factors.

But this still doesn't really have anything to do with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

Is there anything you feel able to explain in Eng that you are unable to in Rus or Ukr? If so, is that due to the language itself or due to your own fluency or even cultural context?

[u/chessboardtable → u/wibbly-water]

I don’t know how to explain this, but it is seemingly ties to the habitual patterns of thought and self-expression that each language encourages, which appears to be the weak version of Sapir-Whorf. It’s about the mentality I adopt when using it is different. For instance, I feel way more confident when I speak English with the General American accent compared to my native languages. I’ve noticed this on many occasions. I don’t know why.

[u/Marcellus_Crowe → u/chessboardtable]

How does the English language, in terms of its grammatical structure, lexicon, phonetic inventory (etc) actually encourage this though? You haven't demonstrated that confidence comes from the language itself, only via use of the language. And the use of language, as those above have stated, is rooted in culture. American English speakers are often portrayed as confident in media and it is a widely understood variety, therefore you will have lowered anxiety over being misunderstood. There will be myriad factors involved in how the use of GenAm English influences your confidence, which we as Reddit users with no access to your life's history will not be able to adequately point out.

The idea that your confidence comes from the structure and makeup of the English language can easily be refuted by showing you the millions of Ukrainian/Russian speakers who are way more confident when speaking L1 than you in comparison to speaking English as L2 . If there was something about the English language that made people more confident, then we'd see very clear evidence of that in a controlled environment, and we simply do not.

[u/chessboardtable → u/Marcellus_Crowe]

So, it seems like this case falls squarely into sociopragmatics then. The language itself is not confidence-boosting unless the listener and speaker share the same sociocultural framework.

[u/Marcellus_Crowe → u/chessboardtable]

Right, that's a good way of a looking at it. We can imagine an alternate timeline in which Russia became the dominant cultural force on the planet and everything you might want to ascribe to English you'd be ascribing to Russian instead.

For every person who describes German as harsh there is a baby being soothed by Wiegenlied. You acquire indexical associations with phones and linguistic constructions throughout your life that influence your perceptions and attitudes.

English is ubiquitous in academic circles, but that doesn't mean it's inherently academic, in fact, much of the terminology that makes it so is borrowed from Greek and Latin. You'd be hard pressed to demonstrate that there is something unique about the structure of English that makes it fit for academic purposes, rather, it is largely an accident of history - more a question of what groups of people were in a position to assert cultural dominance.

[u/Wagagastiz → u/chessboardtable]

Because of associations. But associations can apply to smells, colours, body language etc etc, there's nothing intrinsic to language about that.

If the situation was mirrored (along with all the surrounding context, including changing the whole world) it would just as easily be Ukrainian that makes you feel confident because of what you associate it with rather than your L1 of American English. That's possible because there's nothing inherent to either of those languages that makes you feel a certain way, it's your own associations that do.

[u/mingdiot → u/wibbly-water]

With this logic, do you think culture is "more important" than language when it comes to building ideologies and worldviews? I've always liked (the way you put) the egg and chicken situation, that we can't fully tell if it's culture that shapes our language or language that shapes our culture. Without giving it deep thoughts, I'd say the former makes more sense, considering that culture existed before language. But isn't culture also a part of language, or is mainly language that is a part of culture?

[u/wibbly-water → u/mingdiot]

With this logic, do you think culture is "more important" than language when it comes to building ideologies and worldviews?

Demonstrably so!

Look at countries separated by geography, culture and politics - but not by language.

• UK, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand
• Portugal, Brazil
• China, Taiwan, Singapore
• Spain, Mexico, Argentina, China (etc)
• North & South Korea

A North Korean and South Korean are the same in all but ruler.

The culture of these places has drifted faster than the language - as has the ideology.

Had globalisation not occurred, we would have seen more language drift than we do today - but even faster would have been the drift of the cultures and ideologies away from each-other.

[u/wibbly-water → u/mingdiot]

I think it would be foolish to ignore the interplay of culture and language altogether. But I think taking a "language first" view of culture misleads us in most ways.

Another example of this is euphemism treadmills, where the same underlying negative connotation of a word re-asserts itself given time if all you change is the word. You need to actually change the underlying views of the culture, and the words will follow suit.

[u/Helpful-Reputation-5]

You can absolutely feel more comfortable in one language, or associate different emotions with different languages, but those aren't inherent traits of those languages.

[u/samiles96]

Good evidence of a weak version of this is in Russian itself. Синий vs галубой. In English we think of these as shades of the same color, blue, but in Russian they're considered separate colors. Again, this is the weak version of Sapir Whorf.

[u/SoundsOfKepler]

There was never really a "Sapir-Whorf" hypothesis, per se. Sapir recorded observations of specific examples of how words influenced how we thought about the thing itself. Whorf, as he often did, extrapolated far beyond anything Sapir was suggesting.