语言决定思想吗?
语言决定思想吗?这是学术界和业余爱好者经常讨论的Sapir–Whorf假设,以两位美国人类学家的名字命名,但维基百科以语言相对论(linguistic relativity)为条目主题。现在,多数心理学家和语言学家认为语言不决定但影响思想。例如,用同一个词指蓝色和绿色的Zuni原住民在回忆蓝绿类颜色的实验中显示出困难,又比如讲西班牙语的人更有可能用大、危险形容桥而德国人用美丽、优雅,因为“桥”在西语里是阳性而在德语里是阴性[1]。
记得读大学时曾与同学讨论个性的问题,其中一个观点是人人都一定有个性,否则岂不成了他只具有共性?而那是不可思议的。后来逐渐认识到,提出这个观点和理由是由于下意识地混淆了中文“个性”这个词的两个含义,可分别用英语的personality和individuality来表示。虽然人人有个性,但原因不应该是假如有人没有个性,他就只有共性。那么,在英语里,词的多意会给说话者的思维造成混淆吗?我认为experience这个词正是,John has five years' experience in Oracle database当然可译作“约翰有五年的甲骨文数据库经验”,但要知道experience一词也有“经历”的意思,只是没有人这样汉译,问题是并非人人——甚至大多数人都不——能做到工作时间与技术能力成正比地增长,“经历”只是有关时间的,“经验”是有关能力的,在IT(信息技术)这个行道,混迹多年而不见长进的人多得去了,一律说experience为经验就默认了越长者越牛的谬论,而IT是最不容忍这个谬论的领域(by the way, 它的相反的极端大概是中医)。为什么今天的中国人尤其是HR的工作人员也常说“某人有X年经验”而不说“经历”?那不过是受英语的影响罢了。
词汇影响思维的例子容易找到,而语法就更难,但其意义更为重大。我认为汉语缺乏虚拟语气是“历史不可假设”这个汉语口头禅流行的部分原因。其他语言中不是没有类似的说法,例如英语中偶尔能听到There are no if's in history或大致类似的说法,意大利语有Con i se e con i ma la storia non si fa(直译:用如果和但是不能搞历史)。但是,中国人对历史不可假设这一信念的执着远非英语国家能比,这的确不容易度量,但我可以到美国的几乎任何一家书店很容易找出书名或副标题有What if的通俗历史读物(如《What If?: The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been》等等),因为美国读者并不认为这种推理无意义,而在中国的书店就很难找到这种书。(我知道有《未曾发生的历史》,但它不是中国人写的,而是Niall Ferguson《Virtual History》的翻译。)鉴于东亚多国的语言缺乏虚拟语气,我在一个东亚文化群里问是否日、韩、越等国普通大众也拒斥counterfactual history(直译:反事实历史,即某个历史事件当初发生了但假设它未发生,或未发生假设它发生了,研究后果会是什么)[2],很遗憾,基本没有得到肯定或否定的答案,但我相信,实际情况可能与中国而不是欧美国家更接近。
汉语缺乏虚拟语气并不妨碍中国人理解反事实条件句或正确表达这个意义,因而否认了语言相对论或Sapir–Whorf假设的强版本,即“语言决定思维”,但虚拟语气的缺乏可能影响了思维,即肯定了语言相对论的弱版本。这是一个具体的、小的主张,不能随意扩大至(比如)汉语是中国人缺乏逻辑和科学观念的原因这些漫无边际的大主张。中国人是否比欧美人更容易犯逻辑错误,比如由如果A那么B推导出如果B那么A、或如果非A那么非B,我没有读到这方面的调查,但即便中国大众犯逻辑错误的概率真的高于英美人,这也很难与汉语语言的特殊性联系起来,因为汉语在因果关系方面的表达力与其他语言相当。汉语的汉字是极其独特的,但因此而得出中国人更易犯逻辑错误的人并未在这个前提和结论中间插入令人信服的推理。
[1] Boroditsky, L., Schmidt, L., & Phillips, W. (2003) "Sex, Syntax, and Semantics" in Language in mind: Advances in the study of language and cognition, p.70;但更全面的研究见Phillips, WebbBoroditsky, Lera "Can Quirks of Grammar Affect the Way You Think? Grammatical Gender and Object Concepts".
[2] ► Facebook东亚文化群posting
https://www.facebook.com/groups/839957606051774/permalink/3025496450831201/
In China people often say "History cannot be hypothesized" (历史不能假设) when discussing a history topic, referring to the fact that you cannot say if something had had (not) happened, so-and-so would (not) have happened. Two questions: (A) Is this saying common in other East Asian countries? (B) Do other East Asian languages have subjunctive mood?
The reason I ask is that I think people in the West rarely say this (History cannot be hypothesized) and have less problem with discussions in a counter-factual situation (counter-factual means exactly that: if A had had done/did/were to do something, B would have done/would do something.) If my impression is correct, I attribute this difference between the West and China, at least partially, to the lack of subjunctive mood in the Chinese language.
Revision of my questions:
(A) The expression equivalent to "History cannot be hypothesized" (e.g. "there are no ifs in history", "one can't make history with 'ifs' and 'buts' ") is in almost every culture or language. But the extent of its existence or impact on speech community's mind may differ greatly. I can't think of a good way to measure it. But imagine you walk into a local bookstore. Can you easily find a book titled with words "What if" (e.g. "What If?: The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been")? In the US, it's generally Yes. But in China I don't recall seeing such a book, except for one translated (《未曾发生的历史》"Virtual History" by Niall Ferguson).
(B) As an alternative to asking if a language has subjunctive mood, I want to know if an Eastern Asian language can produce a context-free sentence that can clearly mean "if I had 1000 dollars today" or "if I have 1000 dollars today" but not ambiguously both at the same time. (The amount of money I chose here is borderline for an ordinary person to be able to produce in a short time. Adjust to the actual economic situation as needed.)
In short, my hypothesis is that if a language cannot produce a context-free sentence equivalent to one expressed in English subjunctive mood that describes impossible events, the people speaking this language natively will have a strong mentality that counterfactual history is worthless. Conversely, speakers of a language with this subjunctive mood will have much less misgiving to embrace such historical argument and be willing to read and think with such logical reasoning.
Minor notes. (1) As I write, I realize subjunctive mood in some languages is required by grammar (e.g. in Spanish, after "querer"). Exclude that. I'm only talking about subjunctive mood that expresses hypothetical events. (2) Let's focus on the mentality of the general public, because scholars in different countries probably have about the same division between supporters and opponents regarding counterfactual historiography.
2020年7月