"No individual is free to describe nature with absolute impartiality but is constrained to certain modes of interpretation even while he thinks himself most free" (Whorf 1940:214).

The argument within Whorf's ‘Science and Linguistics' (1940) statement explicitly highlights that we cannot and most importantly do not have the ability, as "free thinking beings" to ‘describe nature' (Whorf 1940:214) with total impartiality. Within this discussion, we will delve into how certain ‘modes of interpretations' as stated by Whorf allow us to construe reality and how this illustration of reality is heavily influenced by the building blocks of the language we use and the culture we immerse ourselves in.

Language is slippery and not fixed, there is not a one to one relationship between language and reality. To understand the statement made by Whorf, we will analyze the theory raised by the work of Ferdinand de Saussure ‘Cours de Linguistique générale' (originally published in 1916) about language (Saussure influenced the ideas proposed by Whorf) being an instrument which we constitute the world and create a reality. After evaluating the works of Saussure and others alike; works from Whorf (1940), Michael Moerman (1988), Professor Stuart Hall (1980) and more, we come to a confluence. An intersection that demonstrates how cultural influence plays a leading role within the frameworks of language. Following my analysis of mentioned scholars, I find myself in agreement with Whorf's claim. Culture and language are good to think with when exploring a statement expressed as such by Whorf.

An early understanding of language

Before the works of Saussure (1916) came to the public sphere, the general assumption was that language was peripheral to our understanding of the world and that of human society. The general dominant assumption affirmed that words were labels ascribed to pre-existing concepts and that different languages are all communicating the same concepts. So, in short, we all perceive the same world but describe it in differing ways.

Saussure at the time innovated these preconceived ideas and informed that words are merely instruments that we use to establish the world to create a reality. Here he argues that there is no reality, his definition of reality does not mean the literal physical plane we reside in. But the reality we have ascribed to be absolute. Saussure's idea is that language and words should not be seen as automatically connected to his definition of reality but rather than signs and symbols, better put, as translated by Roy Harris, ‘signification and signals' (F. Saussure & R. Harris 2013:78) or ‘signifier and signified' as translated by Wade Baskin (2011: 64). The point Saussure puts across is that the signifier and signified are ‘arbitrary' (F. Saussure & R. Harris 2013:78) we tend to assume that the relationship amongst the signifier and signified to be natural, this is not true to Saussure, it is when power is introduced into the theme to when it begins to naturalize the relationship between the signifier and signified. ‘If words stood for pre-existing concepts, they would all have exact equivalents in meaning from one language to the next' (W. Baskin 2011:116), different languages and words should not be seen to be interchangeable as they all bear different meaning due to how it is been established. Saussure, like most structuralist, imagined a static world, disregarding the accounts of power and its role on change and the effects of cultural context.

The modes of interpretations of languages are ingrained within ‘cultural context’ (M. Moerman 1988: 28). This demonstration of cultural context can be seen clearer in the analysis of Thai conversations in his (1988) ethnography ‘Talking Culture: Ethnography and Conversation Analysis'  in the fifth chapter "Society in a Grain of Rice" demonstrates the exercise of micro-ethnography. The ‘line-by-line examination' (M. Moerman 1988: xii) presents us with three-minute conversations in Thai village, here is where we see the extensive information needed to decipher words and ways in which words are spoken and presented. The articulation and deliverance can only be understood through a series of cultural context or better said ‘process of cultural unpacking' (A. Barnard & J. Spencer 2010: 413). In contrast to Saussure, we see how culture and language have a binate characteristic when it comes to understanding how we understand nature with words and modes of interpretation. In this chapter, M. Moerman renounces the Saussurain conception of meaning which dominate structuralism and symbolic anthropology.

Whorf (1940) like Saussure, wants to strike at the common-sense of the time. This common-sense and the common-sense now informs us that language is all about communication. Through his work, he explains that our ‘view does not depend on grammar but on laws of logic and reason which are supposed to be the same for all observers of the universe' (B. Whorf 1940: 208). According to Whorf, when discussing reason and logic, we are only capable as individuals to communicate the logic of our own grammar which we take for granted as "natural" logic. In other words, that fact that a word, sentence or a phrase makes sense to us, it will make sense to anybody. Building on Whorf's point, he expresses that we cannot assume agreeing about something we have described to be objectively real, it becomes tautological. In essence, the argument made by Whorf is that language is not a vehicle for expressing ideas, but rather shaped by those very ideas. Concocting these elements, we can now take a look into how the idea of ‘metaphors' as highlighted by J. Bourke (2014) play a role in shaping these very ideas we use to constitute reality and how this links into how we are all constrained to the modes of interpretation we have built from our culturally lived experience.

"Culture creates metaphor"

The way an individual expresses pain through the use of metaphors is an important element of language along with the influences of cultural context when discussing how nature cannot be described with absolute impartiality. Joanna Bourkes (2014) article ‘Pain: metaphor, body, and culture in Anglo-American societies between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries’ refers back to Anglo-American societies (around the eighteenth to twentieth century) to explore the relations seen between ‘metaphorical languages, body, and culture' (J. Bourke 2014: 475) in regard to expressions and meaning of pain. J. Bourke would explain language to be a form of engagement in dialogue with socio-environmental and physiological factors.

A key matter which ties the work of Moerman (1988) to Bourke is the focus of ‘figurative language' (475). In this case, Bourke would explain figurative language as being a method in which individuals would communicate the sensation of pain to themselves and others, in which can only be understood through the influence of cultural context. Inasmuch as for Moerman, as prior explained would focus on the utterance of a word and the cultural unpacking needed to understand the meaning in what is said. The building of early linguistic ideas about language, as previously demonstrated by the likes of Saussure and B. Whorf. Bourke highlights the importance of how it is not just only that we navigate a world with pre-existing established realities, and that language is the only ‘universal' tool we use to navigate. But we navigate ‘by employing not only the existing metaphorical tools but also the ability to imaginatively create other conceptual domains from bodily experiences', (J. Bourke 2014: 495) the metaphors are not a reflection of the pain we are trying to describe though is used to establish what it is within the context of an interactive cultural experience.

The association of certain metaphors with a sensation is fixed with a meaning. To help us understand how meaning can be fixed between components (slightly differing from the naturalization process that signs and signifiers go through when a word becomes normalized with its associate) examining media content and how media plays a role in how we fix and attach meaning.

Media constructs reality

The ideas that I have explored in relation to Saussure (1916), Whorf (1940) and Bourke (2014), continue to be examined (with a focus on media) by Stuart Halls (1980) paper ‘Encoding/Decoding’ a crucial contribution to cultural studies. Generally, there is a similar set of claims, here we will be able to see how the media along with its translucent mechanism consummates meaning. Prior to Hall's ‘Encoding/Decoding' theory, the original consensus around media and how people understood media was that there is a producer of information and ideas with an outline of what they want the recipient to achieve from the set of ideas and information constituted by the producer. These set of ideas are mediated through an array of media formats (let it be television, books, films or art); the intended meaning of the ideas produced are either received successfully or unsuccessfully.

The space in which the code disseminates into from the array of media platform to the receiver is ‘a space with various referents when decoded by receivers' (L. Luan 2016: 16). This space is the cause of dissemination as space is imbued with environmental, political and cultural factors, which explains how we are scattered in our interpretation of the same information. The framework of the theory speaks in the interest of similarity and development when referred to Whorf's idea of ‘natural logic' (1940:207); how the world appears to people according to ‘natural logic'. Meaning, the world is created and understood through this logic. S.Halls made a similar contribution to his media theory where he demonstrates to us that there is no linear teleological relationship between the producer and receiver of media information, but instead a double process of interpretation. This double process of interpretation is demonstrated when discussing the naturalization between the ‘sign and referent' (1980:167). This double process of interpretation is confabulated in the coupling of images and words.

Keeping the essay central to theme and discussion over Whorf statement. I'll be moving onto other forms and modes of interpretations, with a focus on images and their contribution to meaning-making in relation to language and culture. The focus on images will allow us to see how the constrained boundaries we navigate is a boundary with flexible borders. What is meant by flexible borders, is in the way we use more than just written language to communicate and produce meaning

Stuart Hall (2001) in his paper ‘The Spectacle of the Other' gives us insight into how we ‘read the picture' (S. Hall 2001: 226) giving us an understanding of how we maneuver our way around visual signs (images) that we receive and what the intended use of these images are. S.Halls ‘Hero or villains?' case study, presents us with an image of the 1988 men's 100m Olympic champion Ben Johnson being coupled with the terms ‘hero or villain'. In context to S.Halls paper, the coupling of images and words is used as a way of ‘representation of race and otherness' (S. Hall 2001: 228). There are levels of denotative meanings when presented with images, and as S.Halls explains, there are ‘connotative or thematic meaning'(S. Hall 2001 228). Referring back to S. Halls (1980) ‘Encoding/Decoding', here we can see how visual signs have varying levels of connotations within it contextual reference in differing ‘discursive fields of meaning and association…' it is here where the ‘already coded signs intersect with the deep semantic codes of a culture and take on additional, more active ideological dimensions. (S. Hall 1980: 168). Yet connotative and thematic meanings tend to be ambiguous in its cause, especially in a case study demonstrated by S. Halls (2001). So this adrift meaning is fixed (in context of Halls work) through ‘the work of a representational practice' where the ambiguity of meanings and the potential interpretations are stripped away in order to privilege one meaning. The union of written language and forms of images is necessary for forming a fixed meaning. The mode of interpretation discussed in S. Halls (2001) helps us engage with how these forms of fixed meaning model our way of thinking. This idea that I have explored with S. Halls is contested in agreeance by L. Boroditsky (2001) as she explores the notion of language shaping the way we think.

Language is the tool which shapes the abstract thoughts we have. The scarcity or inconclusiveness of ‘sensory information' (L. Boroditsky 2001: 20) plays a leading role in shaping how speakers think. An experiment was taken in order to understand whether the language you speak affects the way you think. The focus was on English and Mandarin as both languages discuss time in different ways, English tends to describe the time in a horizontal manner in contrast to Mandarin where time is described as vertical. This is well exhibited during the moments where native English speakers had been taught how to describe time in ‘vertical spatial terms in a way similar to Mandarin' (L. Boroditsky 2001: 1) subsequently, the group that undertook the test manifested similar biases when it came to thinking about time in a vertical manner like in Mandarin. The difference in the way time is described between the two languages is a reflection in the way the speakers think and shapes their idea and understanding of time, by the same token, a person's native language operates in establishing habitual thoughts (as demonstrated in the tests taken by L. Boroditsky) but not in a Whorfian common sense of determining how you think.

Conclusion

The discussion orbiting the statement made by Whorf (1940) has allowed us to build onto his ideas about language and the constraints in our modes of interpretations that we are bonded to. Yet we discover that these constraints are not universal as thought by F. Saussure (1916) due to the cultural context and influence a language pack itself with. A step further was taken in building upon Whorf's point that language and culture work in a binate fashion. Language and culture are intertwined, it is a ‘lived experience' (J. Bourke :2014:476). Furthermore, this lived experience is a leading factor in shaping the way think as conferred by L. Boroditsky (2001).

Amongst the discussions, one underlying theme within all ethnographies and studies used is that conversational analysis is a focus that should be taken with importance for the anthropologist. The methodology in the discipline is mainly fieldwork, in the field culture is performed through conversation (language). Here we get the first contact in understanding a statement like that of Whorf.

Bibliography

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