Editing Benjamin Lee Whorf (section)

=== Universalism and anti-Whorfianism ===
Whorf's work began to fall out of favor less than a decade after his death, and he was subjected to severe criticism from scholars of language, culture and psychology. In 1953 and 1954, psychologists [[Roger Brown (psychologist)|Roger Brown]] and [[Eric Lenneberg]] criticized Whorf for his reliance on anecdotal evidence, formulating a hypothesis to scientifically test his ideas, which they limited to an examination of a causal relation between grammatical or lexical structure and cognition or perception. Whorf himself did not advocate a straight causality between language and thought; instead he wrote that "Language and culture had grown up together"; that both were mutually shaped by the other.<ref name="HABITUAL" group="w" /> Hence, {{harvcoltxt|Lucy|1992a}} has argued that because the aim of the formulation of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis was to test simple causation, it failed to test Whorf's ideas from the outset.

Focusing on [[color term]]inology, with easily discernible differences between perception and vocabulary, Brown and Lenneberg published in 1954 a study of [[Zuni language|Zuni]] color terms that slightly support a weak effect of semantic categorization of color terms on color perception.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Lenneberg|1953}}; {{harvcoltxt|Brown|Lenneberg|1954}}</ref><ref>{{harvcoltxt|Lenneberg|Roberts|1956}}</ref> In doing so they began a line of empirical studies that investigated the principle of linguistic relativity.<ref group="n">For more on this topic see: [[Linguistic relativity and the color naming debate]]</ref>

Empirical testing of the Whorfian hypothesis declined in the 1960s to 1980s as [[Noam Chomsky]] began to redefine linguistics and much of psychology in formal [[universalism|universalist]] terms. Several studies from that period refuted Whorf's hypothesis, demonstrating that linguistic diversity is a surface veneer that masks underlying universal cognitive principles.<ref name="B&K">{{harvcoltxt|Berlin|Kay|1969}}</ref><ref name="MALOTKI" /> Many studies were highly critical and disparaging in their language, ridiculing Whorf's analyses and examples or his lack of an academic degree.<ref group="n">See for example pages 623, 624, 631 in {{harvcoltxt|Malotki|1983}}, which is mild in comparison to later writings by {{harvcoltxt|Pinker|1994}}, {{harvcoltxt|Pinker|2007}}, and {{harvcoltxt|McWhorter|2009}}</ref> Throughout the 1980s, most mentions of Whorf or of the Sapir–Whorf hypotheses continued to be disparaging, and led to a widespread view that Whorf's ideas had been proven wrong. Because Whorf was treated so severely in the scholarship during those decades, he has been described as "one of the prime whipping boys of introductory texts to linguistics".<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Parry-Jones|1997}}</ref> With the advent of [[cognitive linguistics]] and [[psycholinguistics]] in the late 1980s, some linguists sought to rehabilitate Whorf's reputation, as scholarship began to question whether earlier critiques of Whorf were justified.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Leavitt|2011|pp=189–212}}; {{harvcoltxt|Lee|1997}};{{harvcoltxt|Gumperz|Levinson|1996}}; {{harvcoltxt|Levinson|2012}}</ref>

By the 1960s, [[Analytical philosophy|analytical philosophers]] also became aware of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, and philosophers such as [[Max Black]] and [[Donald Davidson (philosopher)|Donald Davidson]]<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Davidson|1973}}</ref> published scathing critiques of Whorf's strong relativist viewpoints. Black characterized Whorf's ideas about metaphysics as demonstrating "amateurish crudity".<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Black|1959|p=230}}</ref> According to Black and Davidson, Whorf's viewpoint and the concept of linguistic relativity meant that translation between languages with different conceptual schemes would be impossible.<ref group="n">{{harvcoltxt|Leavitt|2011}} notes how Davidson cites an essay by Whorf as claiming that English and Hopi ideas of times cannot 'be calibrated'. But the word "calibrate" does not appear in the essay cited by Davidson, and in the essay where Whorf does use the word he explicitly states that the two conceptualizations ''can'' be calibrated. For Leavitt this is characteristic of the way Whorf has been consistently misread, others such as {{harvcoltxt|Lee|1996}}, {{harvcoltxt|Alford|1978}} and {{harvcoltxt|Casasanto|2008}} make similar points.</ref> Recent assessments such as those by Leavitt and Lee, however, consider Black and Davidson's interpretation to be based on an inaccurate characterization of Whorf's viewpoint, and even rather absurd given the time he spent trying to translate between different conceptual schemes. In their view, the critiques are based on a lack of familiarity with Whorf's writings; according to these recent Whorf scholars a more accurate description of his viewpoint is that he thought translation to be possible, but only through careful attention to the subtle differences between conceptual schemes.<ref name="LeavittPhil">{{harvcoltxt|Leavitt|2011|pp=177–178}}</ref><ref>{{harvcoltxt|Lee|1996|pp=121–22}}</ref>

[[Eric Lenneberg]], [[Noam Chomsky]],<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Chomsky|1973}}</ref> and [[Steven Pinker]]<ref name="Pinker 1994">{{harvcoltxt|Pinker|1994}}</ref><ref name="Pinker 2007">{{harvcoltxt|Pinker|2007}}</ref> have also criticized Whorf for failing to be sufficiently clear in his formulation of how language influences thought, and for failing to provide real evidence to support his assumptions. Generally Whorf's arguments took the form of examples that were anecdotal or speculative, and functioned as attempts to show how "exotic" grammatical traits were connected to what were considered equally exotic worlds of thought. Even Whorf's defenders admitted that his writing style was often convoluted and couched in neologisms&nbsp;– attributed to his awareness of language use, and his reluctance to use terminology that might have pre-existing connotations.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Ridington|1987|p=18}}</ref> {{harvcoltxt|McWhorter|2009|p=156}} argues that Whorf was mesmerized by the foreignness of indigenous languages, and exaggerated and idealized them. According to [[George Lakoff|Lakoff]], Whorf's tendency to exoticize data must be judged in the historical context: Whorf and the other Boasians wrote at a time in which [[racism]] and [[jingoism]] were predominant, and when it was unthinkable to many that "savages" had redeeming qualities, or that their languages were comparable in complexity to those of Europe. For this alone Lakoff argues, Whorf can be considered to be "[n]ot just a pioneer in linguistics, but a pioneer as a human being".<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Lakoff|1987|p=330}}</ref>

Today, many followers of universalist schools of thought continue to oppose the idea of linguistic relativity, seeing it as unsound or even ridiculous.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Gumperz|Levinson|1996|p=23}}</ref> For example, Steven Pinker argues in his book ''[[The Language Instinct]]'' that thought exists prior to language and independently of it, a view also espoused by philosophers of language such as [[Jerry Fodor]], [[John Locke]] and [[Plato]]. In this interpretation, language is inconsequential to human thought because humans do not think in "natural" language, i.e. any language used for communication. Rather, we think in a meta-language that precedes natural language, which Pinker following Fodor calls "[[Language of thought hypothesis|mentalese]]." Pinker attacks what he calls "Whorf's radical position", declaring, "the more you examine Whorf's arguments, the less sense they make."<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Pinker|1994|p=60}}</ref> Scholars of a more "relativist" bent such as [[John A. Lucy]] and [[Stephen C. Levinson]] have criticized Pinker for misrepresenting Whorf's views and arguing against [[Strawman fallacy|strawmen]].<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Lee|1996|pp=19–20}}; {{harvcoltxt|Casasanto|2008}};{{harvcoltxt|Gumperz|Levinson|1996}}; {{harvcoltxt|Darnell|2006}};{{harvcoltxt|Lamb|2000}}; {{harvcoltxt|Levinson|2012}}</ref><ref group="n">See also [[Nick Yee]]'s evaluation of Pinker's criticism, [http://www.nickyee.com/ponder/whorf.html What Whorf Really Said], and Dan "Moonhawk" Alford's rebuttal of Chomsky's critique at [http://www.hilgart.org/enformy/dma-chm0.htm Chomsky's Rebuttal of Whorf: The Annotated Version by Moonhawk, 8/95] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200131035640/http://www.hilgart.org/enformy/dma-chm0.htm |date=January 31, 2020 }} and [http://www.hilgart.org/enformy/dma-Chap7.htm The Great Whorf Hypothesis Hoax by Dan Moonhawk Alford] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190905131552/http://www.hilgart.org/enformy/dma-Chap7.htm |date=September 5, 2019 }}.</ref>