How do we know that language is more than denotation? -Erik Larsen

We know that language is more than denotation because of the ways in which we have seen how language can affect our thinking and even our perception. Around the year 1940, a man by the name of Benjamin Lee Whorf was studying this effect that language had on perception on  native american tribes, as we learned from the article “Does Your Language Shape How You Think?” But due to Whorf’s lack of evidence, all his claims were ridiculed and for 70 years on, no further studies were conducted in this area. Whorf was on to something though. Now the study on the effect of language on perception is growing and we have lots of evidence to support this claim.

Another idea from the article “Does Your Language Shape How You Think?” , that I found interesting was that “Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey”. This idea from Roman Jakobson shows how language shapes our societal ideas. In the example given in the article, if you were to say “I was at a friends house last night”, in English, you could not tell if they friend was male or female. Giving me the choice of weather it is your business to know or not. If you were to say the same phrase in Spanish, you would have to use a male form or female form for the word friend (amigo/amiga). Weather you like it or not, that person you told knows a bit more about your situation than you might want them to know. The way I see it, this affects what we think as a society because, if you were a Spanish speaker, you have to live with this male/female form of words and so it is common for people to know information like that. In English, it is often rude to ask if the person you are referring to is male or female, if the person sharing hasn't started already. I is not right in that society for information like that to be disclosed. This is one of the more obvious and possibly easier to understand ways in which language shapes perception.

Looking back on the short documentary we watch in class about color in newborns as opposed to post language childeren, and the study in the Himba tribe, there are more ways in which language affects perception. In this case, it is the language of color classification that affects our perception. Newborn babies do not see color immediately and  it takes around 3 months for color to develop. The study in the video compared babies pre and post language, to see the difference in reaction and behavior with color. What they found was that, even without language, babies are still dividing and sorting colors into categories of their own. When they tested a 3 year old child that could speak language, they found that the post language children would processes color on the right side of the brain, closer to the language area of the brain. Unlike pre language children who use the left side of their brain. Clearly there is some sort of effect that language has on how we perceive color, otherwise there would be no change. How language is effecting our color perception is still a mystery but we have enough evidence to someday find the answer. This evidence is being supported by the other experiment in the second half of the video where there was a study on the Himba tribe in Namibia. This tribe only has half the amount of words to categorize color than we do in English and most other languages. The Himba tribe people were shown a circle of squares, where one square was a different color. The first of these types of slides was, what looked like to use, a circle of squares that had all the same shade of green on them. We could not see the difference in the shades of green but nearly all the Himbas could spot it within a few seconds. Their name for that shade of green was different from the other shades of green and so it was different to them. The second slide that was shown to them was just like the other, except there was a light shade of blue with the other green shaded squares. To us, anyhow, it was blue, and we could see the difference easily. The Himbas however, did not have a different name for that color and so could not spot the difference in the circle. That shade of “blue” and that shade of “green” was known to them by one word. The Himba Tribe cannot perceive two different colors, if what they are being asked to differentiate is known as the same thing to them.

This type of language effect on perception with the Himba tribe is similar in character to the game telephone, but in different languages. The normal game telephone doesn't have much to do with language and perception because it is normally played in one languages. Changing the language each time the message is passed on down the line in a game of telephone shows a lot about how we translate what we hear in one language and put together in another language. Things like context, verb tense, and conjugation cloud the original message. When you have to comprehend these three things in one language, then as accurately as possible, translate that in your own head to then carry on the message to the next person in a different language it becomes apparently difficult. But apart from the inability to translate certain words, conjugations, and verb tenses, how much of the original  message is being changed by our perception and not just   handicaps of a the language? This question had a striking resemblance to the original question of how do we know that language is more than denotation. (after thinking about it as I went to get a drink of water because I have been working for a good 45 min now). Looking at this game of telephone with different languages hold more information to answering the blog question than I had originally anticipated. Language can affect perception but then so can perception affect language. The way we picture what we are told in our minds and the way we describe what we pictured is done by a the use of a complex structure of words that we then share. That structure of words cannot be reprocessed into the same mental image by a different person that that first person created. That different person will understand that you said but picture something different and use his “own” words to describe what he/she pictured. The denotation of words, at this point, are non existent because the meanings of words in different languages change each person's perception, which then the perception that each person has of those words leads to the change in the meaning of words due to way in which people use them. Ironically, this makes complete sense to me but will most likely will not make sense to others who will read up to my conclusion.