Beyond Sapir-Whorf: A special collection of articles examines the life and legacy of Benjamin Lee Whorf

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the idea that languages are not mirrors of the world but are culturally specific frames through which distinctive worlds are created, arose as American academics engaged the astonishing linguistic diversity that became available to them in the early 20th century. Almost instantly the idea captured the public imagination. Interest in the idea continues to grow, though it is often caricatured in textbooks to mean we are prisoners of our language.  A special issue of the Journal of Anthropological Research, “The Many (After) lives of Benjamin Lee Whorf,” explores the life and work of one of the most eloquent theorists of these ideas. 

The first article in the collection, “Benjamin Lee Whorf and Ernest Naquayouma’s Working Relationship: A Perspective on Linguistic Fieldwork in the 1930s,” by author Hannah McElgunn, describes Whorf’s studies with a Hopi tribal member that ultimately led the anthropologist to a more holistic view of language.

“What Whorf Read and Who Has Been Reading (or Thinking) Whorf,” by John Leavitt, traces the wide range of sources that Whorf cites in his work, from quantum mechanics and non-Euclidean geometry to psychoanalysis and occultism, and, additionally, surveys Whorf’s own influence on science fiction and fantasy works like Robert A. Heinlein’s “Gulf” and Samuel R. Delany’s Babel-17.  

“Whorf’s Legacy in Anthropological Theory: Science, Mysticism, and the Role of Comparison,” by Sean O’Neill, explores Whorf’s interest in mysticism, particularly as it coincided with Indigenous modes of language and thought. Resisting the supremacy of Western science and colonialism, O’Neill writes, Whorf viewed the study of mystic and Indigenous scholarship as a way “to reveal not only different ways of thinking, but different ways of existing within the world.”

Anthony K. Webster, in “Whorf, Navajo Poetry, and Ethnopoetic Dialoging,” credits Whorf for his dialogic approach to anthropology, especially in his encounters with Hopi interlocutors, while questioning their lack of acknowledgement in his published work. Nevertheless, Webster writes, rather than “talking above” his subjects, as was the convention in much ethnology of the time, Whorf’s practice emphasized “talking across.”

Finally, “Reflections on Teaching Whorf: Gasoline Drums as a Pedagogical Tool” by Morgan Siewert, describes a method for introducing linguistic relativity to university students, employing an example from one of Whorf’s articles in which the anthropologist describes how gasoline drums labeled “empty” may lead workers to overlook the possibility that they may in fact contain dangerous vapor. Siewert also discusses the significance of Whorf’s thought on the efforts of Anishinaabe community members to preserve their language through future generations.

If Whorf’s legacy has been beleaguered by his association with a hypothesis he never claimed, this special issue, writes Hannah McElgunn in her introduction to the collection, puts the focus back on the contributions of his actual bibliography. The collection demonstrates Whorf’s investment in dialogism with the Indigenous people he studied, his efforts to challenge Western and European linguistic hegemony, and his interest in the relationship of language and real-world material concerns. Ultimately, McElgunn writes, the collection offers “a grounded contextualization of this often-caricatured figure."