Talk:Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

From Conservapedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Page Locked

I have protected this article for the time being, as it has recently been the target of parodists. If you have any changes that need to be made, please bring them up here and we can add them in. Hopefully, once the article is complete we can remove the protection. --KotomiTnandeyanen? 05:12, 25 February 2009 (EST)

Implications

The idea that language shapes thought is surely related to the idea that information affects decisions. If your knowledge of something is restricted to what your parents or school or government tells you, then you might not be aware of important aspects of that thing. This is why free speech vs. censorship continues to be an important issue. --Ed Poor Talk 10:06, 25 February 2009 (EST)

Category

Please add to Category:Linguistics. Thanks! WesleySHello! 11:25, 25 February 2009 (EST)

Also, please link to linguistics. It's strange the targets liberals fixate on... -Foxtrot 11:38, 25 February 2009 (EST)
I have wikilinked to linguistics, however, here is something strange - I have added [[category:Linguistics]] (and [[category:Language]] to test) - but nothing appears. Any ideas anybody? --KotomiTnandeyanen? 02:13, 26 February 2009 (EST)
There is a missing > after the last reference to close it off! -Foxtrot 03:06, 26 February 2009 (EST)
Ah, so simple! Thank you - fixed it. --KotomiTnandeyanen? 03:20, 26 February 2009 (EST)

1984

Isn't the concept of this very similar to the idea behind newspeak in 1984? I would add a nod to that or an "in popular culture" section but it is over 12 years since I read the book. Could an editor more familiar with the books possibly assist with this? --CJones 08:09, 27 February 2009 (EST)

Indeed! and already noted: "An example of Sapir's beliefs can be found in George Orwell's book "1984". Here, "Newspeak" was created to alter the way people thought about the government. The new vocabulary was a method of mind control, since the population could not think of things that were not included in the vocabulary. In essence, they were prisoners of their own language." --KotomiTnandeyanen? 08:16, 27 February 2009 (EST)
Here's a nice quote from George Orwell, author of 1984:
  • "The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc [English Socialism], but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought--that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc--should be literally unthinkable, at least as far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect method. This was done partly by the invention of new words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever...A person growing up with Newspeak as his sole language would no more know that ‘equal' had once had the secondary meaning of "politically equal," or that ‘free' had once meant "intellectually free," than, for instance, a person who had never heard of chess would be aware of the secondary meanings attaching to ‘queen' or ‘rook.' [1] --Ed Poor Talk 09:55, 27 February 2009 (EST)