How to understand "otherwise experience very largely" in the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis? [closed]

Question

I’m a Chinese and can’t understand a classic text from The Status Of Linguistics As A Science (1929) by Edward Sapir.

We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.

A commonly seen Chinese translation for “otherwise” here is “using other methods”, so the Chinese translation for the sentence says: Everything we see, hear or experience using other methods is very largely because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.

I don’t quite agree with the translation. My understanding is, “otherwise” here mean “differently”; “see and hear” are the senses, while “experience” is a comprehensive feeling obtained through seeing, hearing, tasting, touching and any other sense. My understanding can be expressed like this: We see and hear, but we have very largely different experience as we see and hear, because…

Please help me analyze the sentence and tell me whether my understanding is correct. Many thanks.

Answer 1

The sentence parses as follows:

{ We { { see } and { hear } and { ( otherwise ) experience } } ( ( very largely ) as we do ) }
because
{ { the language habits of our community } predispose { certain choices of interpretation } }.

That is, (otherwise) adverbially modifies "experience". We have three verb phrases in conjunction, "see" and "hear" and "otherwise experience". Your interpretation is incorrect; "otherwise experience" here means "experience besides seeing or hearing". The sentence can be phrased in more simple English as:

We experience things (including seeing and hearing and other experiences) in the way that we do, very largely because our community has habits of language that give us a tendency to choose certain interpretations of those experiences.

Note that in my simple rephrasing I chose to have "very largely" modify "because", because it means essentially the same thing as the original. The original says that most of our experiences (very largely what we see, hear or otherwise experience) are the way they are because of XXX. My rephrasing says that our experiences are the way they are mostly (very largely) because of XXX. The grammatical construction is different, but the meaning is very largely the same, so the simple rephrasing is preferable for clear communication.