MY WHORFIAN TENDENCIES.

MY WHORFIAN TENDENCIES. Without realizing it, I have been taking sides in the “fierce debate” among linguists. It turns out that I believe that language can shape thought. I posted yesterday on how I agree with feminists that “he” rather than “they” diminishes women. Consider also the example of Tuyuca, the “hardest language.” As I posted here, Tuyuca requires a verb ending to show how the speaker knows something. As a lawyer, I love the idea of a language where the grammar requires the speaker to identify hearsay statements. I think that having to assess the evidence for every statement would have an effect on the way speakers think—perhaps make them more cautious, perhaps more serious, perhaps more conscious of how sure they are about what they are saying. I posted here about the linguist Anna Wierzbicka’s argument that the English language is unusual in that it has a “proliferation of various linguistic tools for qualifying one’s statements, for hedging one’s assertions, and for differentiating the strength of one’s assent to a proposition.” I posted here about the view of the legal scholar George Fletcher, endorsed by Wierzbicka, that “‘There is no way to convey the connotations of “due process,” “reasonable doubt,” and “malice aforethought” in any language except English.’” I found both arguments interesting and convincing, without realizing that I was accepting the controversial view that language can shape thought.