Benjamin Whoff Essay

Ernesto Lyons

10/18/2011

Philosophy

Benjamin Whorf

“Language, Thought and Reality”

        A background phenomena is something really important for effectiveness in linguistics. If the background is not the same, then the linguistic process is not able to be effective, and an agreement is not going to be made. The background is involved in the activity of talking and of reaching the agreement.  This is something that is tremendously significant; and although many people experienced it every day, may remain unconscious to it.

        I have many personal experienced to this concept because my roommate is from the United States and I am from Panama. Our way of thinking, and our lives have been completely different. Sometimes he does some things that I really don’t understand, but his other American friends do understand.  Benjamin Whorf explains this really well with his examples of the Hopi language.  For instance, the Hopi language has one noun that covers everything that’s flies, with the exception of the birds. They call everything that flies by the same exact word. Off course, there will be a lot of difficulties for us to understand about what are they talking about, but for the Hopi, it is completely normal and they understand themselves. The names for all the other things that fly are not important to them. Their background is the same so they really understand each other.

        I strongly agree with Whorf when he emphasizes that the background is extremely important. Every normal human, can or is able to speak.  But every culture does it in a different way. It does not matter the language the person speaks; the culture in which he or she exist in affects the way he or she perceives the world. In other words, the linguistic organization of languages itself, affects understanding.    

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