| 释义 |
Sapir–Whorf hypothesis|səˈpɪə(r) hwɔəf|
[f. the names of Edward Sapir (1884–1939) and Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941), American linguists.]
A hypothesis, first advanced by Sapir in 1929 and subsequently developed by Whorf, that the structure of a language partly determines a native speaker's categorization of experience. Cf. Whorfian a.
1954H. Hoijer Language in Culture i. 93 The central idea of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis is that language functions, not simply as a device for reporting experience, but also..as a way of defining experience for its speakers. 1954― in Mem. Amer. Anthropol. Assoc. lxxix. 95 Differences..which reflect a people's habitual and favorite modes of reporting, analyzing, and categorizing experience, form the essential data of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. 1956J. B. Carroll in B. L. Whorf Lang., Thought, & Reality 27 Whorf's principle of linguistic relativity, or, more strictly, the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis (since Sapir most certainly shared in the development of the idea) has..attracted a great deal of attention. 1976Word 1971 XXVII. 242 This is 180 degrees different from what has been known about the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, which advocates that it is language that has the power to dictate man's world view in a tyrannical way. |