Chapter 12 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: Worlds Shaped by words

Prior to reading this piece written by David S Thomson, i had struggled to understand the notion of how the way we speak influences the way we act. Thompson opens this piece with a powerful phrase that draws me into the piece, "Language Mirrors Reality." He continues by saying that members of different societies may not share cultural categories, because words from one language often cannot be translated directly into another (113). David's piece introduces Benjamin Lee Whorf who takes the concept of "words label reality" a little further.
The story of the man who saw the sign of empty barrels that were previously filled with gasoline, helped me understand the man's action of throwing the match into the barrel that resulted in an explosion. Benjamin Lee Whorf often cited this example to illustrate the theory he had about language. Whorf claimed that language may be shaped by the world, but it in turn shapes the world. Whorf theory said that people can only express those things that their language permits them to. Whorf claimed that the reason the worker would put a match into the empty barrel (which was not really empty), was because there is no word in the English to describe the barrel as being "empty but not quite"(114). This made me understand the mis- perception of things in our everyday lives, which come from the mis-interpretation of words in our given language.
Whorf did a study of the Hopi language and discovered that it was drastically different from languages of the Indo-European family ( English and French). He claimed the major difference was that Indo- European's base their language with respect to time, that is past, present and future, whereas the Hopi's do not. For example when members from the Indo- European culture had a job to do (building a house), we always set a time frame to it, and that is because our language influences this behavior. If the Hopi's have a to make a mat, they do not consider a time-frame rather they say "it will reach that state when nature so ordains". Thus the Hopi's language is based on influences of nature rather than time.
Lee also gave reference to the 1964 essay " Politics and the English Language" written by George Orwell. Orwell's claims is that language is often times distorted(123), he gave examples to many words used in political contexts that in reality foster negative meanings, however are perceived by that culture as acceptable. This suggest that the lack of words has forced us to give words double meanings.