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Bork (other linguists) - be interested in hearing more about this. GoT's article references Whorfian "linguistic determinism" also. Is it really a joke in academic circles?

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It is a joke among philosophers of language. From studying philosophy of language I got the impression that some sociologists and psychologists still ascribe to and lecture on a Whorfian view. This is despite the fact that is based on poor science and is philosophically confused. So I think in some academic circles it may be standard..


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As for psychology, I was taught in cog psych classes that the evidence was against it, such as in the color-naming one. The "joke" part is something I think I've heard people kind of say but not textbook. I have never heard of a known strong proponent. It seems that Steven Pinker devotes a whole chapter to tearing it apart in The Language Instinct (this is second hand from a web search, I have been forbidden from reading it), and as we all know Steven Pinker speaks for everybody when he says stuff.

So much of it depends on what you're trying to claim. For instance it is well known that cultures with short words for numbers have greater numerical memory than cultures with longer words. This is never presented as Whorfian, I guess because it's a memory thing and not cognition?