Through the Language Glass addresses a question that has interested me since high school: does the language that you speak affect the way you think? The cover promises that the answer is "Yes, it does," making is a different and more satisfying answer than the one I got back in high school from Saussure's Course in General Linguistics. I looked forward to hearing what Deutscher had to say on the subject, and also a bit leery about my reaction since I have fairly strong educated opinions in this area.
I was mostly familiar with the linguistic research that Deutscher reports on. The book focuses primarily on color terms and spatial orientation, with a short speculative foray into gender systems. Deutscher does a lovely job of describing how these topics came to be at the forefront of the study of cognitive variation, especially in the case of color terms.
In the introduction, Deutscher promises to avoid the rhetorical excesses of Whorfians and stick to the data. In one sense, I think he kept his promise too strictly: I wanted more discussion about how the theoretical results relate to the fundamental question. On the other hand, the conclusions he does come to sound somewhat overblown and unjustified to me.
I was mostly familiar with the linguistic research that Deutscher reports on. The book focuses primarily on color terms and spatial orientation, with a short speculative foray into gender systems. Deutscher does a lovely job of describing how these topics came to be at the forefront of the study of cognitive variation, especially in the case of color terms.
In the introduction, Deutscher promises to avoid the rhetorical excesses of Whorfians and stick to the data. In one sense, I think he kept his promise too strictly: I wanted more discussion about how the theoretical results relate to the fundamental question. On the other hand, the conclusions he does come to sound somewhat overblown and unjustified to me.
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