Epistemologico-Historic Foundations of Linguistic Relativity

언어상대성 원칙의 역사 인식론적 토대 -문화 언어학을 위한 서설-

This paper reexamines ideas about linguistic relativity in the light of new interest in the theoretical climate. The original idea is based on the incommensurability of the semantic structures of different languages. On this view, language, thought, culture are deeply interconnected, so that each language might be associated with it a distinctive world view. Throughout this work I utilize the historico-epistemological standpoint to dissect the conceptual structure of this principle. In the introduction I will of for a justification of choice of the theme. Section 1 will address some essential definition of the linguistic principle and insist on the necessity to elaborate a typological spectrum of relativism and universalism. In the second section some important landmarks of linguistic relativity were marked from Plato to Humboldt via Condillac and Herder. 1 will subdivide the relativity hypothesis into 3 theses which are interlated. In the final section the epistemological structure of the linguistic principle will be analysed in some detail by providing my exposition of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. By way of conclusion I will present the works of Wierzbicka who demonstrated the lexicons of different languages suggest different conceptual universes. By rejecting analytical tools derived from the English language she proposed instead a natural semantic metalanguage based on lexical universals, which is made up of universal semantic primitives. In this paper we attempted to construct a general problematics of linguistic relativity, focolizing on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. We devided this very problematic question into its ontological and epistemological dimensions. In particular the ambivalance of Whorf's relativity is discussed in some detail. Also, an archeological survey of this subtle question on the relation between language, thinking and culture was provided. (from Aristotle to Humboldt, via Condillac and Nitzche). In conclusion this investigation underlines the necessity of preparing the cultural linguistics to enlarge the scope of contempory linguistics.