重温“沃尔夫假说”

Rethinking “Whorf Hypothesis”

摘要: “沃尔夫假说”是沃尔夫语言思维观的集中体现。该文追溯了“沃尔夫假说”的发展轨迹，通过回归文本，还原沃尔夫思想之精髓，纠正将其二分为语言相对论和语言决定论的曲解，探讨假说的核心观点，指出存在的缺陷并正视其贡献。其观点主要有以下三点：其一，人们按照语言规定的方式建构世界；其二，不同语言划分世界的方式不同；其三，不同的语言反映不同的世界观。其缺陷主要有以下三点：其一，忽视语言与思维的相互作用；其二，未将语义纳入语言差异的研究范围内；其三，未能证明语言与非语言行为的直接联系，有循环论证的嫌疑。“沃尔夫假说”的突出贡献在于以下两点：其一，语言不再是思维的附属，确立了语言的主体地位；其二，反思本民族中心主义，提倡文化多元主义。

Abstract: “Whorf Hypothesis” embodies the essential characteristics of Whorf’s views of language and thinking. Resorting to its original texts and tracing the development of “Whorf Hypothesis”, the paper aims to clear its misinterpretation and correct its division into linguistic relativity and linguistic determinism; further explore the core viewpoint of Whorf’s thinking and points out the existing defects and acknowledges its contribution. The hypothesis can be summarized into three facets: first, people construct the world according to the way prescribed by language; second, the ways of segmentation and categorization of the world vary from language to language; third, different languages reflect different worldviews. Three weaknesses are pointed out: first, it overlooks that interactions between language and thinking go both ways; second, the semantics is not included in the study of language differences; third, it fails to prove the direct connection between language and non-verbal behavior, which is suspected of circular argument. The outstanding contribution of “Whorf Hypothesis” lies in the following two points: first, it establishes the subject status of language so that language is no longer a mere adjunct to thought; second, it encourages people to reflect on ethnocentrism and pushes forward cultural pluralism.