Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler

Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler
the other' (ibid., 97). Although Lévi-Strauss's analytical approach remains formally synchronic,
involving no study of the historical dimension, he does incorporate the possibility of change:
oppositions are not fixed and structures are transformable. He notes that we need not regard such
frameworks from a purely synchronic perspective. 'Starting from a binary opposition, which affords the
simplest possible example of a system, this construction proceeds by the aggregation, at each of the
two poles, of new terms, chosen because they stand in relations of opposition, correlation, or analogy
to it'. In this way structures may undergo transformation (ibid., 161).
Lee Thayer argues that 'what we learn is not the world, but particular codes into which it has been
structured so that we may "share" our experiences of it' (Thayer 1982, 30; cf. Lee 1960).
Constructivist theorists argue that linguistic codes play a key role in the construction and maintenance
of social realities. The Whorfian hypothesis or Sapir-Whorf theory is named after the American
linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf. In its most extreme version the Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis can be described as relating two associated principles: linguistic determinism and
linguistic relativism. Applying these two principles, the Whorfian thesis is that people who speak
languages with very different phonological, grammatical and semantic distinctions perceive and think
about the world quite differently, their worldviews being shaped or determined by their language.
Writing in 1929, Sapir argued in a classic passage that:
Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity
as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has
become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one
adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an
incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the
matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits
of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing
the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not
merely the same world with different labels attached... We see and hear and otherwise
experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose
certain choices of interpretation. (Sapir 1958, 69).
This position was extended by his student Whorf, who, writing in 1940 in another widely cited
passage, declared that:
We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types
that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every
observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of
impressions which has to be organized by our minds - and this means largely by the linguistic
systems in our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as
we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way - an
agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our
language. The agreement is, of course, an implicit and unstated one, but its terms are
absolutely obligatory; we cannot talk at all except by subscribing to the organization and
classification of data which the agreement decrees (Whorf 1956, 213-4; his emphasis).
The extreme determinist form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is rejected by most contemporary
linguists. Critics note that we cannot make inferences about differences in worldview solely on the