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The last frontier in the philosophy of language: implications of ICT for the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
Alex Kasonde
The paper argues that the advent of Information Communications Technology (ICT) bears implications for the philosophy of language generally and Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (SWH) in particular. The paper's argument is premised on the potential of ICT to provide solutions in digital communication that are more user-friendly than hitherto attempted. To achieve the intended outcome the paper briefly discusses the relationship between ICT, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and philosophy of language from an African perspective. In conclusion the paper poses a challenge for jurisprudence and the philosophy of language. The paper suggests that user-friendly interventions in future legislation and policy pertaining to digital communication will increasingly need to recognize virtues of linguistic diversity and multilingualism.
Keywords
ICT; philosophy of language; Sapir-Whorf hypothesis; user-friendly
For citation
Kasonde, Alex. 2008. "The last frontier in the philosophy of language: implications of ICT for the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis." Language. Text. Society 2 (1): e48-e54. https://ltsj.online/2008-02-1-kasonde. (Journal title at the time of publication: SamaraAltLinguo E-Journal.)
Africa University, Mutare, Zimbabwe E-mail: [email protected]
Received: 15 April 2008
Reviewing editor: Andrey G. Kirillov Accepted: 15 May 2008
Published online: 1 June 2008
Abstract
"Wir sollten die Dinge so einfach wie möglich machen, aber nicht einfacher"
Albert Einstein
1. INTRODUCTION
In their relentless struggle to provide satisfactory solutions to different clients, players in the ICT market have turned to language as the last frontier. In areas where linguistic choices never really existed, the factor of language is increasingly seen as an effective business solution. Take for instance the Automatic Teller Machine (ATM). The foreign tourist traveling to the Eastern Highlands city of Mutare, formerly Umtali located in the Southern African state of Zimbabwe no longer needs to worry about cash withdrawals, thanks to ICT solutions. The foreign tourist is served at the local branch of StanChart Bank by ATMs that understand English, French and German, depending on the linguistic needs of each client. The first question then in the philosophy of language concerns the deliberate omission or conspicuous absence of Ndebele and Shona, the two major local languages of Zimbabwe. The second question also of interest for philosophy of language concerns the deliberate omission or conspicuous absence of Portuguese, the official language of Mozambique. It should be remembered that from the Zimbabwean perspective neighboring Mozambique represents an important commercial partner and fellow member state of Southern African Development Community (SADC). Considering that Shona is the common local language across the Mozambique-Zimbabwe border, it would serve as a user-friendly business solution if it were incorporated on the ATM.
2. ICT
Having considered language in relation to ATM solutions, the next example concerns mobile phones. Designers of the mobile phone handset have endeavored to satisfy the needs of practically all their clients, in terms of language as much as designers have addressed complex hardware engineering features. In this regard, the Amharic keypad is the latest innovation from Nokia in the exclusive club of more developed languages of the world.1 The lineup includes Nokia 1200, 1208, 2630 and 2760, all adapted to best suit the Ethiopian market. By this simple gesture, Nokia domesticates the Ethiopian market in the provision of user-friendly handsets. Not so long ago this prestigious innovation remained the preserve of Chinese, Japanese and other relatively small languages of Europe, including Russian and Swedish.
The last example of the skillful application of language based user-friendly solutions for the benefit of many consumers pertains to word-processing software, such as the Microsoft "Word" writing this very document, a document that is fine, versatile and perfectly user-friendly.2 In response to market demands across the global market, the software development giant Microsoft has customized MS Word for practically the entire English language speaking world.3 Similarly, in response to market demand for products that meet specific needs of the vast
1 http://news.softpedia.com/news/Nokia
2 Microsoft Word, 2003 version
3 The complete list of countries customized by MS Word comprises Australia, Belize, Caribbean, Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Jamaica, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom and Zimbabwe.
Microsoft clientele, MS Word covers most of the French language speaking world.4 It is noteworthy that only five German dialects are recognized by Microsoft, namely Austria, German, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg and Switzerland. As far as Chinese is concerned, China, Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore and Taiwan have been included by Microsoft. Quite interestingly for the Chinese language, Malaysia has been left out.
At the level of African languages, one finds a cohort of indigenous languages, including Amharic, Fulfude, Hausa, Igbo, Kanuri, Oromo, Sepedi, Somali, Sutu, Swahili, Tigrigna, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Yoruba and Zulu, thereby raising the third question in philosophy of language concerning the deliberate omission or conspicuous absence of adequate representation of African players on the global stage generally and ICT world scene in particular (Ekpenyong et al. 2006). Writing about Zimbabwe, for instance, one notes that Ndebele and Shona are both left out. The same thing applies to Malawi or Zambia, where absent as they are Chewa and Bemba represent major languages in their respective countries. Even the act of treating Swahili as one linguistic entity could be questionable as long as Chinese and German dialectology are accorded due recognition. In other words, the linguistic criteria ought to be transparent and capable of withstanding scientific inquiry. In this regard, one would pose the question of responsible philosophy of science while at the same time facing political philosophy. Take the case of Swahili, for example. For Swahili, at least two possible approaches could be identified, namely national and cultural (Gerhardt 1990). At the national level, at least five different variants could be discerned: Comoros Island, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. At the cultural level, the number of Swahili variants could rise considerably, reaching well over 50 dialects (Racine-Issa 2002). Certain sources recognize Swahili diversity while maintaining a conservative number of Swahili dialects: Mrima, Unguja (Kiunguja, Zanzibar), Pemba, Mgao. Bajun has 85% lexical similarity with Amu, 78% with Mvita, 72% with Mrima; Mvita has 86% with Amu, 79% with Mrima; Mrima has 79% with Amu (Gordon 2005).
The predicament of Swahili dialectology in relation to ICT solutions also applies to various regional languages in Africa, including Hausa. In the case of Hausa, the geographical area in need of recognition could include Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria and Togo. It would seem arrogant to recognize deny Hausa dialectology and then recognize the dialectology of another Afro-Asiatic language, namely Arabic. The Arabic language has been well represented by MS Word.5
3. Philosophy of language
Wittgenstein is one of the philosophers that recognized language as a subject of philosophical inquiry (Wittgenstein 1953). For Wittgenstein, certain errors in philosophical inquiry could be explained in terms of language usage. Similarly, Locke made useful remarks concerning language, including words, ideas and knowledge (Locke 1823). The teaching of courses in Philosophy of Language at university level has maintained the tradition of considering logic and understanding in relation to language (Watzka 2006).
4 Belgium, Cameroon, Canada, Congo DR, Cote d'lvoire, France, Haiti, Luxembourg, Mali, Monaco, Morocco, Reunion Island, Senegal, Switzerland and French West Indies.
5 Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, UAE and Yemen. To these countries, one can also consider adding Chad and Sudan.
The idea central to SWH suggesting that difference in medium of communication has a significant bearing on the message concerns philosophy of language. The particularistic view lies in direct contrast to linguistic universalism that defines human language in terms of certain common properties, including mutual intelligibility and translation capacity (Popper 1970). The problem of the degree of pertinence of the linguistic medium could be simplified by making a distinction between different categories of information in relation to behavioral outcomes. Going back to the English (save), French (enregistrer) and German (speichern), the concept of saving data can imply 'keeping', 'memorizing' or 'storing', depending on the circumstances. Regardless of connotations, overtones and undertones, the outcome for the computing community will be identical as long as information critical for the correct behavioral response has been successfully communicated. Let us suppose that X is asking Y for an apple. In this particular situation, the 2 critical concepts are "apple" and "giving" with the understanding that the subject-predicate relationship is defined. It then becomes incorrect for the *asker to hand an orange to the *askee (Searle 1969; Mulligan 1987).
4. Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
Named after Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, two American linguists that proposed the controversial hypothesis, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis broadly states that an individual's worldview (die Weltanschauung) is to a certain extent determined by the language of the speech community that the particular individual belongs to. In the words of Sapir (Sapir 1956):
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.
Whorf expressed the same idea using the following words (Whorf 1940; Whorf 1956):
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.
A critical analysis of SWH shows that two extreme positions can be identified, namely linguistic determinism where language could determine thought and human behavior or linguistic relativity whereby "people who speak different languages [could] perceive and think about the world quite differently" (Chandler 1995). As long as linguistic evidence constitutes the basis of the argument, it could be proved that in fact a given speech community allocates considerable time and resources to a given domain.
Hence, the importance of cattle among the agricultural people of Rwandan society manifests itself in a proliferation of cattle categories and the concomitant cattle terminology. Similarly, for the Eskimo speech community snow categories (with special terms) are abundant simply because they live near the North Pole where it snows incessantly. In Icibemba, the language of the Ababemba people of DRC and Zambia mostly, the linguistic categories of time and tense differ radically from the common Indo-European model. When metaphorical usage is put aside, then it becomes crystal clear that among the Icibemba speaking community, past tense ought to differentiate various detailed concepts, including hodiernal, recent and distant pasts. On the other hand, the future and past tenses in Icibemba do not carry total linguistic symmetry like in English, French and German, with considerable reduction for the future tenses (Kasonde 2000).
Thus, the relationship between the environment and language is a complex relationship in the sense that some lexical items could belong to the realm of an imaginary world. In other world, notions of snow or sand could be borrowed from a different language or preserved in the language over time. What is necessary for philosophical inquiry is recognition of its existence and formulating reasonable explanations for it (Serpell 2007; Serpell 1976).
5. CONCLUSION
The paper looked at linguistic practices in the ICT sector with special reference to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It argued that the existence of ICT could signify implications for ICT as well as the philosophy of language. Using examples from various languages, including African languages the paper argued that user-friendly ICT solutions will increasingly create, customize and tailor solutions to the needs of different clients. Governments in the Southern African region could for instance, start working on versatile regional projects, including a common regional constitution (with valid translations!), customs union and monetary union, based on the South African model. In contrast to the Constitution of South Africa that recognizes a record eleven official languages, for instance, both the current Constitution of Zambia based on Mwanakatwe Commission as well as the future Constitution of Zambia from the Mung'omba Commission that is currently under debate only recognize English as the sole official language in the country. In the case of the language policy of Malawi the favorable trend following the end of the Banda regime was an assault on English-Chewa bilingualism in favor of a broader multilingualism that brought Tumbuka and other ethnic languages on board. The implication of ICT for the SWH would mean
greater inclusion rather than exclusion, meaning that even in the constitutional English-Tswana bilingualism of Botswana may very well yield to the multilingualism philosophy from regional giant South Africa. The last question is, does South Africa care? If one holds the view that leading by example is the way forward, then the answer is that South Africa does care. If, on the other hand, one holds the dialogical view, then in fact South Africa does not.
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to acknowledge tremendous support from authorities at Africa University generally and Dr. Thokozile Chitepo in particular. Various anonymous critical remarks from certain colleagues are also acknowledged but the responsibility for errors and omissions falls squarely on the shoulders of the author.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article. Author information
Alex Kasonde is a Senior Lecturer, Africa University, Mutare, Zimbabwe. Copyrights
Copyright for this article is retained by the author, with publication rights granted to the journal.
