Thanks, I already forgot that debate. Now it makes much more sense after I’ve seen the book!
Re: whorfian hypothesis—I guess the important thing when debating the impact of language on perception is to be specific about which parts of the language impact which parts of perception. For example, if the language instead of one word for “blue” uses two different words for “light blue” and “dark blue”, it may make the people perceive things about colors differently (i.e. where a person from one culture would insist that two objects have ‘the same color’, a person from another culture would insist they have ‘two different colors’), but ultimately the effect is limited to thinking about colors in some part of color spectrum. But this specific mapping of language differences to perception differences is usually ignored, and people just give a few language differences, often trivial, and then claim that any change of perception can happen.
Thanks, I already forgot that debate. Now it makes much more sense after I’ve seen the book!
Re: whorfian hypothesis—I guess the important thing when debating the impact of language on perception is to be specific about which parts of the language impact which parts of perception. For example, if the language instead of one word for “blue” uses two different words for “light blue” and “dark blue”, it may make the people perceive things about colors differently (i.e. where a person from one culture would insist that two objects have ‘the same color’, a person from another culture would insist they have ‘two different colors’), but ultimately the effect is limited to thinking about colors in some part of color spectrum. But this specific mapping of language differences to perception differences is usually ignored, and people just give a few language differences, often trivial, and then claim that any change of perception can happen.