Sapir

 I've been reading Sapir with an open mind. It is important to understand something before criticizing it. I'm not so interested in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in itself, but with the implicit understanding of language that underlies a particular approach to language and culture.  

HIs first idea is that language is "perfect" as the means of cultural expression in any given culture, the "perfect symbolism of experience." Secondly, language is expressive and not merely referential.  For the native speaker, things have the names they ought to have. There is no real separation between language and experience because all experience, or imagined experience, is verbalized. The same word or phrase can have variable meanings depending on the tone of voice, the context, etc.... 

This is almost like the actor's intuition that we can say "Thanks" different ways to mean different things: sincerely grateful, sarcastic, perfunctory, dismissive, enthusiastic, doubtful, relieved... Pragmatics are more significant than the semantic meaning of the word. 

[The opposite perspective: language is arbitrary, not felt to be "perfect." Experience can be essentially non-verbal. Words are inadequate to express fundamental aspects of experience. I don't think there is a convincing refutation of the idea that language is expressive and not merely semantic.]