ANTH 104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Linguistic Determinism, Lightning, Conceptual Metaphor
17 Sep 2018
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Two important elements of linguistic relativism that most critics of linguistic relativism misunderstood. More productive to focus on grammatical differences than lexical differences. Were talking about habitual thought/behavior, not absolute limits on what its possible to think linguistic determinism vs linguistic relativism. Bad not a part of language vs ungood. Can think bad but just speak in positive terms the importance of metaphors. We use metaphors to make sense of things, especially abstract, intangible things. An atom is like an atom (not a metaphor) An atom is like the solar system (help us understand structure of atom) (not exactly alike) Different culture use different spatial metaphors for time! English speakers: past is to the left, future is to the right. Hebrew speakers: past is to the right, future is to the left. Kuuk thaayore speakers (only absolute positioning terms): past is to the east, future is to the west. English speakers: past is behind you, future is ahead of you.
