Editing Linguistic relativity (section)

=== Benjamin Lee Whorf ===
{{Main|Benjamin Lee Whorf}}

More than any linguist, Benjamin Lee Whorf has become associated with what he termed the "linguistic relativity principle".{{sfn|Whorf|1956|p=214}} Studying [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native American]] languages, he attempted to account for the ways in which grammatical systems and language-use differences affected perception. Whorf's opinions regarding the nature of the relation between language and thought remain under contention. However, a version of theory holds some "merit", for example, "different words mean different things in different languages; not every word in every language has a one-to-one exact translation in a different language"<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nursinghero.com/study-guides/atd-hostos-child-development-education/linguistic-relativity |website=Nursing Hero |title=Linguistic Relativity |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509221855/https://www.nursinghero.com/study-guides/atd-hostos-child-development-education/linguistic-relativity |archive-date=2024-05-09}}</ref> Critics such as Lenneberg,{{sfn|Lenneberg|1953}} [[Max Black|Black]], and [[Steven Pinker|Pinker]]{{sfn|Pinker|1994|pp=59-64}} attribute to Whorf a strong linguistic determinism, while [[John A. Lucy|Lucy]], [[Michael Silverstein|Silverstein]] and [[Stephen C. Levinson|Levinson]] point to Whorf's explicit rejections of determinism, and where he contends that translation and [[Commensurability (philosophy of science)|commensuration]] are possible.

Detractors such as Lenneberg,{{sfn|Lenneberg|1953}} [[Noam Chomsky|Chomsky]] and Pinker{{sfn|Pinker|1994|p=60}} criticized him for insufficient clarity of his description of how language influences thought, and for not proving his conjectures. Most of his arguments were in the form of anecdotes and speculations that served as attempts to show how "exotic" grammatical traits were associated with what were apparently equally exotic worlds of thought. In Whorf's words:

{{blockquote|We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscope flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems of our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way—an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language [...] all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated.{{sfn|Whorf|1956|p=212–214}}}}

[[File:Whorf Shawnee Example.png|400px|thumb|Whorf's illustration of the difference between the English and Shawnee gestalt construction of cleaning a gun with a ramrod. From the article "Science and Linguistics", originally published in the ''MIT Technology Review'', 1940.]]