Linguistic Relativity: Exploring the Concept and its Validity

In the late 20^th century, with the fall of behaviorism, research into the cognitive sciences accelerated and our understanding of the inner working of the mind grew bit by bit. The study of language in the past was traditionally studied as a part of the humanities; recently however, scientists have begun studying our knowledge and use of language as a cognitive phenomenon. Our use of language remains a mystery. Strikingly, humans are able to form sentences using complex systems despite being unaware of the rules that govern this speech system. The principle of linguistic relativity holds that the structure of language affects the ways in which speakers conceptualize their world. In this post, I would like to explore this concept further and question whether linguistic relativity can be used to describe the framework of our minds or if the concept is a gross generalization. 

Many thinkers have claimed that differences in language lead to differences in experience and thought. Different languages will embody different worldviews and so their users will experience the world in different ways. Developed by linguists Whorf and Sapir, the principle relies on two central claims: linguistic diversity and linguistic influence on thought. Linguistic diversity postulates that languages – especially those of quite different language families – differ in important ways. This claim seems uncontroversial. Despite all languages sharing many linguistic universals, they differ largely in their syntactic structure and in their lexicons. Secondly, linguistic influence on thought postulates “the structure and lexicon of one’s language influences how one perceives and conceptualizes the world... in a systematic way.”[1] This hypothesis is more controversial and requires further explanation. 

Whorf thought that various aspects of language might affect cognition. Let us first consider grammar and syntax. A simple example is typical word order. In English, this order follows subject, verb and object. In Japanese it is subject, object and verb. Secondly, a language’s lexicon classifies vocabulary in different ways and this may lead to cognitive differences. Lastly, Whorf claims that pragmatics or context plays a central role in our use of language; differences in speakers’ use of languages in specific settings can affect their mental lives. These various linguistic differences, Whorf claims, give rise to cognitive differences. Consider an example: color cognition. Nothing in the physics of light dictates where to draw boundaries between colors, and so our color segmentations on the spectrum may seem arbitrary. However, different languages vary widely in the way they segment the color spectrum. For example, many languages have a term equivalent to the term ‘orange,’ but an orange object in one language may not be orange in another. Then, the boundaries of color terms change according to the language you speak. 

Linguistic relativity claims that the characteristics of languages will model the way you look at the world, through grammar, lexicon and context. The cognitive sciences strive to examine how our minds represent and process information. If our minds are predisposed to think in certain ways due to language, then the field of linguistics could be the key to understanding our brain. In Physical Symbol Systems, Newell claims that PSS’s use symbols to function internally. Going one step further, I argue that the symbols themselves may affect the system as a whole. For example, in English we spatialize non-spatial concepts. For example, we say “grasp an argument,” “come to the point,” or “our views are far apart.” A similar yet non-spatial statement with the same message in another language will not create the same thought, due to differences in language. 

In past decades, we have found that the mind is essentially modular, and that as a result, different brain modules do domain-specific work. For example, one module will parse syntax whereas another will recognize faces. Hence, if we find that language influences one aspect of cognition – color cognition for instance – we cannot know if language will affect other independent domains of the mind in the same way. Does language only affect certain modules of our mind? If this were the case, would it make establishing the validity of linguistic relativity difficult? Is linguistic relativity an over-simplification of the inner workings of our minds? I'm excited to hear what you have to say. 

[1] "Relativism." Stanford University. Stanford University, n.d. Web. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/supplement2.html>.