Does Language Shape Thought?
Til tafakkurni shakllantiradimi?
Sarlavha va pastdagi so‘zlarga qarang. Matn nima haqida bo‘lishi mumkin? Bir daqiqa o‘ylab ko‘ring — bu miyani o‘qishga tayyorlaydi.
Lingvistik nisbiylik gipotezasi va tilning idrokka ta’siri bo‘yicha zamonaviy tadqiqotlar.
Kalit so‘zlar
Bu so‘zlar matnda uchraydi va matnda ajratib ko‘rsatiladi. Bosing — talaffuzini eshitasiz.
⏱ O‘qish boshlanganda vaqt o‘lchanadi — oxirida tezligingizni ko‘rasiz.
👆 Istalgan so‘zni bosing — tarjimasi yoki lug‘atga havola chiqadi.
Does the language we speak shape the way we think? For much of the twentieth century, this question was associated with the American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf, who argued in the 1930s and 1940s that speakers of different languages inhabit, in effect, different mental worlds. His most famous claim concerned the Hopi people of Arizona, whose language, he asserted, contained no words or grammatical forms referring to time, so that Hopi speakers must conceive of time in a fundamentally different way from Europeans.
Biz gapiradigan til fikrlash tarzimizni shakllantiradimi? Yigirmanchi asrning katta qismida bu savol 1930–1940-yillarda turli tillarda so‘zlashuvchilar amalda turli ruhiy olamlarda yashashini ta’kidlagan amerikalik tilshunos Benjamin Li Uorf bilan bog‘langan. Uning eng mashhur da’vosi Arizonadagi xopi xalqiga tegishli edi: u ularning tilida vaqtga ishora qiluvchi so‘zlar yoki grammatik shakllar yo‘q, shuning uchun xopi tilida so‘zlashuvchilar vaqtni yevropaliklardan tubdan boshqacha tasavvur qilishi kerak, deb ta’kidlagan.
Whorf’s ideas proved enormously popular, but they did not survive scrutiny well. A detailed study of the Hopi language published in 1983 by the linguist Ekkehart Malotki documented hundreds of expressions relating to time, including tenses, units of time and words for “yesterday” and “tomorrow”. Meanwhile, the dominant trend in linguistics, influenced by Noam Chomsky, emphasised what all human languages have in common rather than how they differ. By the 1970s, the strong version of Whorf’s hypothesis, that language determines thought and that speakers cannot think what their language cannot express, had been largely abandoned.
Uorfning g‘oyalari juda mashhur bo‘ldi, lekin ular sinchkovlik bilan tekshiruvga yaxshi bardosh bermadi. Tilshunos Ekkehart Malotki tomonidan 1983-yilda nashr etilgan xopi tilining batafsil tadqiqoti vaqtga oid yuzlab iboralarni, jumladan zamonlarni, vaqt birliklarini va “kecha” hamda “ertaga” so‘zlarini hujjatlashtirgan. Shu bilan birga, Noam Xomskiy ta’siri ostidagi tilshunoslikdagi ustun yo‘nalish insoniyat tillarining qanday farq qilishiga emas, balki ularning umumiy jihatlariga urg‘u bergan. 1970-yillarga kelib, Uorf gipotezasining kuchli talqini — til tafakkurni belgilaydi va so‘zlovchilar o‘z tili ifodalay olmaydigan narsani o‘ylay olmaydi, degan talqin deyarli rad etilgan edi.
In recent decades, however, a more modest version of the idea has returned, supported this time by careful experiments. Researchers now ask not whether language imprisons thought but whether it nudges it, influencing what speakers habitually pay attention to. The answer, it appears, is sometimes yes.
Biroq so‘nggi o‘n yilliklarda bu g‘oyaning yanada kamtarona talqini qaytdi, bu safar puxta tajribalar bilan qo‘llab-quvvatlangan holda. Tadqiqotchilar endi til tafakkurni qamab qo‘yadimi, deb emas, balki uni turtib yuboradimi, so‘zlovchilar odatda nimaga e’tibor berishiga ta’sir qiladimi, deb so‘rashadi. Javob, ko‘rinishidan, ba’zan ha.
One striking example comes from the Guugu Yimithirr language of north-eastern Australia, whose speakers do not use words like “left” and “right” to describe the location of objects. Instead, they use cardinal directions, saying, for example, that there is an ant on your “southern” leg. To speak this way, one must know where north is at every moment, and speakers of such languages do indeed display an extraordinary sense of orientation, able to point accurately to distant places even inside unfamiliar buildings.
Yorqin misollardan biri Avstraliyaning shimoli-sharqidagi guugu yimitir tilidan keladi, bu tilda so‘zlashuvchilar narsalarning joylashuvini tasvirlash uchun “chap” va “o‘ng” kabi so‘zlarni ishlatmaydi. Buning o‘rniga ular asosiy yo‘nalishlardan foydalanib, masalan, “janubiy” oyog‘ingizda chumoli bor, deyishadi. Shunday gapirish uchun har lahzada shimol qayerdaligini bilish kerak va bunday tillarda so‘zlashuvchilar haqiqatan ham g‘ayrioddiy yo‘nalishni aniqlash qobiliyatini namoyon etadi, hatto notanish binolar ichida ham uzoqdagi joylarni aniq ko‘rsata oladi.
Colour offers another fruitful area of study. Russian, unlike English, has two basic words for what English speakers call “blue”: “goluboy” for lighter shades and “siniy” for darker ones. In a 2007 experiment, Russian speakers were found to be slightly faster at distinguishing between light and dark blue shades when they fell on opposite sides of this linguistic boundary, an advantage that disappeared when they were asked to perform a simultaneous verbal task, suggesting that language was actively involved in the perception. English speakers showed no such effect.
Rang yana bir samarali tadqiqot sohasidir. Rus tilida, ingliz tilidan farqli o‘laroq, ingliz tilida so‘zlashuvchilar “ko‘k” deb ataydigan rang uchun ikkita asosiy so‘z bor: ochroq tuslar uchun “goluboy” va to‘qroqlari uchun “siniy”. 2007-yilgi tajribada rus tilida so‘zlashuvchilar och va to‘q ko‘k tuslar bu lingvistik chegaraning qarama-qarshi tomonlariga tushganda ularni biroz tezroq ajratishi aniqlangan; ulardan bir vaqtning o‘zida og‘zaki vazifani bajarish so‘ralganda bu ustunlik yo‘qolgan, bu esa tilning idrokda faol ishtirok etganini ko‘rsatadi. Ingliz tilida so‘zlashuvchilarda bunday ta’sir kuzatilmagan.
Other studies have explored grammatical gender. In languages that classify nouns as masculine or feminine, some experiments have suggested that speakers describe objects in ways that reflect the grammatical gender, for instance using more “masculine” adjectives for a bridge in a language where “bridge” is masculine. These results, however, have proved harder to replicate, and some researchers suspect that the effects are small or limited to particular experimental conditions.
Boshqa tadqiqotlar grammatik jinsni o‘rgangan. Otlarni muzakkar yoki muannas deb tasniflaydigan tillarda ba’zi tajribalar so‘zlovchilar narsalarni grammatik jinsni aks ettiradigan tarzda tasvirlashini ko‘rsatgan, masalan, “ko‘prik” so‘zi muzakkar bo‘lgan tilda ko‘prik uchun ko‘proq “erkakcha” sifatlardan foydalanishgan. Biroq bu natijalarni takrorlash qiyinroq bo‘lib chiqqan va ba’zi tadqiqotchilar ta’sir kichik yoki muayyan tajriba sharoitlari bilan cheklangan deb gumon qilishadi.
The emerging picture, then, is nuanced. Language does not trap us within a fixed view of the world; people can learn new concepts and new languages, and translation, though imperfect, is always possible. But the habits of speech we acquire in childhood do appear to train our attention in particular directions. For learners of a foreign language, this may be one of the most rewarding discoveries: acquiring a new language involves not only new words but, in small ways, new ways of noticing the world.
Shunday qilib, paydo bo‘layotgan manzara nozik. Til bizni dunyoga qat’iy qarash ichida qamab qo‘ymaydi; odamlar yangi tushunchalar va yangi tillarni o‘rgana oladi, tarjima esa nomukammal bo‘lsa ham doimo mumkin. Lekin bolalikda egallagan nutq odatlarimiz e’tiborimizni muayyan yo‘nalishlarga o‘rgatganga o‘xshaydi. Chet tilini o‘rganuvchilar uchun bu eng qimmatli kashfiyotlardan biri bo‘lishi mumkin: yangi tilni egallash nafaqat yangi so‘zlarni, balki kichik jihatlarda dunyoni payqashning yangi usullarini ham o‘z ichiga oladi.
Tushundingizmi?
Javob topa olmasangiz, «O‘qish» bosqichiga qaytib, matnga qarang — bu ham mashq.
-
Asosiy g‘oya
1 What is the overall conclusion of the article?
-
2 What did Malotki’s study show about Hopi?
-
3 How do modern researchers frame the question differently from Whorf?
-
4 What happened to the Russian speakers’ advantage during a verbal task?
-
5 What does the article say about studies on grammatical gender?
True / False / Not Given
True — matnda aynan shunday deyilgan. False — matn aksini aytadi. Not Given — matnda bu haqda ma’lumot yo‘q.
-
1 Malotki’s study supported Whorf’s claim about Hopi.
-
2 Chomsky’s influence led linguists to focus on what languages share.
-
3 The writer claims translation between languages is impossible.
-
4 Russian has two basic words for shades of blue.
-
5 The 2007 experiment also tested speakers of Uzbek.
-
6 The 2007 colour experiment involved more than a thousand participants.
-
7 The writer suggests learning a language can change what we notice.
-
8 English speakers did not show the same effect as Russian speakers.
-
9 Guugu Yimithirr speakers use cardinal directions instead of “left” and “right”.
-
10 Whorf spoke the Hopi language fluently.
-
11 Whorf made claims about the Hopi language and time.
-
12 Guugu Yimithirr speakers lose their sense of direction inside unfamiliar buildings.
So‘zni ma’nosi bilan juftlang
Chapdan so‘zni, o‘ngdan uning ma’nosini tanlang. Hammasi juftlansa, natija chiqadi.
Natijangiz
- Tushunish
- —
- So‘zlar
- —
- Tezlik
- —