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From: bossed@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Bosse Dominique)
Subject: Re: In defense of Whorf
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Date: Sat, 18 Mar 1995 16:15:29 GMT
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(Sorry about the accidental previous post.)

About the so-called discredit of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, one has to
keep in mind that when Chomsky established his totalitarian rule over
North-American linguistics, it became excessively dangerous for any 
reasonable linguist to display interest in linguistic relativism. Many a
rich trend of research had to suffer the same fate -- even Chomsky's former
students Lakoff and McCawley had to atone for their rebellious attitude
outside mainstream linguistics.

In any case, before Chomsky successfully manufactured absolute consensus
against any kind of relativism, there were some promising empirical 
investigations into the matter. I have in mind the following:

	"Studies in linguistic relativity" (Brown and Lenneberg)
	"The influence of syntax on visual perception" (Hooton and Hooton)
	"Language classifications in behavior" (Carroll and Casagrande)

I am not implying that these were conclusive or flawless, but rather that
they were a step towards the formulation of testable hypotheses bearing
on the main issue.
--
Dominique (fem.) Bosse~

bossed@ere.umontreal.ca
