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JolantaLatkowska
Beautifullyphrased,thequotationindicatesthatWhorfsawthoughtasthe
linguisticandnon-linguisticcontentofthemind.Surprisingly,thereisno
mentionofeitherregularityorfrequencyofoccurrencethatcouldaccountfor
thehabitualnatureofthought.Theshapinginfluenceoflanguageisdescribed
elsewhereasanon-consciousstructuringprocessthatisnotalwaysovertly
linguistic:
Thinkinginalanguagedoesnotnecessarilyhavetousewords.[…]Much
thinkingneverbringsinwordsatall,butmanipulateswholeparadigms,
word-classes[…]4behind’or4above’thefocusofpersonalconsciousness.
(Whorf,1956,p.252,footnote1)
Thenowclassicstatement“Thelinguisticsystem(inotherwords,the
grammar)ofeachlanguage[…]isitselftheshaperofideas”(Whorf,1956,
p.212)explainsthesignificanceoftheparadigmsandword-classes,whichare
attributedwithformativepowers.Whorf(1956,p.258)statedexplicitlythat
sentencesweremoreessentialthanwords.
Unfortunately,tothedetrimentofhistheory,Whorfwasofteninconsistent
andimprecise.InhisrebuttaloftheWatsoniannotionthatsilentthinkingis
essentially“suppressedtalkingaccompaniedbylaryngealagitations”(Whorf,
1956,pp.66-68),heambiguouslysuggeststhepossibilitythatitis
RAPPORTbetweenwords,whichenablesthemtoworktogetheratallto
anysemanticresult[…]thatconstitutestherealessenceofthoughtinsofar
asitislinguistic.(Whorf,1956,pp.66-68)
andthat“thinkingitselfisinalanguagelinEnglish,inSanskrit,inChinese”
(Whorf,1956,p.252).Infact,vaguereferencestothe“linguistically-determined
thoughtworld”(Whorf,1956,p.154)aboundinhistexts,implicatinglanguage
ingeneralasapotentstructuringagent.
Thislackofprecisionshouldtakenoonebysurprise.Whorfwasclearlyan
open-mindedresearcherwhowasfamiliarwithtrendsanddevelopmentsinpsy-
chology.Forinstance,theideathatthoughtwaslargelylinguisticwasborrowed
fromJung,whileinTheYaleReport(Whorf&Trager,1996)Gestalttheory
servedasabackdropforadiscussionoftheinteractionbetweenlanguageand
perception.Whorfwasalsoawarebutdismissiveofalternativeviewsofthelan-
guage-thoughtinterface.Thequotationsbelowlayouthisthoughtsonthismatter:
Talking,ortheuseoflanguage,issupposedonlyto4express’whatises-
sentiallyalreadyformulatednonlinguistically.Formulationisanindependent
process,calledthoughtorthinking,andis[…]indifferenttothenatureof
particularlanguages.(Whorf,1956,p.207)
