Berthoff, Ann E. “What Works? How do we Know?” Journal of Basic Writing 12.2 (1993) 3–17.
Berthoff’s “Sapir and the Two Tasks of Language” (part 6)
“Boas and Sapir” (20)
**Franz Boas (The Mind of Primitive Man, 1938; Handbook of American Indian Languages, 1969)
“Sapir was a follower of Boas…Sapir was faithful to the principles and methodology of Boas, though he seems to have been bolder than his master” (20).
Berthoff’s “Sapir and the Two Tasks of Language” (part 3)
“From strong to weak versions”
Berthoff argues that Whorf’s thinking has enjoyed a legacy “precisely because of” the “vagueness” of his terms, and that his admirers have dealt with the “unsupportability” of Whorf’s claims by making them more vague (12).
Berthoff’s “Sapir and the Two Tasks of Language” (part 2)
“Whorf’s logical weakness”
“Avoiding abstract terms was one way, Whorf thought, to avoid verbal problems; stressing activities over states was another” (8).
