Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis

J.A. Lucy, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001

The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, also known as the linguistic relativity hypothesis, refers to the proposal
that the particular language one speaks influences the way one thinks about reality. Linguistic relativity
stands in close relation to semiotic-level concerns with the general relation of language and thought,
and to discourse-level concerns with how patterns of language use in cultural context can affect
thought. Linguistic relativity is distinguished both from simple linguistic diversity and from strict
linguistic determinism. The long history of the hypothesis is sketched with an emphasis on the
hierarchical formulations characteristic of most early efforts. This is followed by a description of the
work of Sapir and Whorf which departs markedly from this earlier tradition and has been influential in
the contemporary period, hence the association of their names with the issue. Whorf's basic argument
about analogical influences is outlined in some detail. Despite widespread interest, quality empirical
research has been in short supply. Recent efforts to remedy this are described. The research is divided
into structure-centered, domain-centered, and behavior-centered types, depending on their manner of
approaching the problem. The contemporary period has seen a rapid improvement in the quality of
some of these efforts. Current trends likely to characterize future research are briefly characterized.

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Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

John A. Lucy, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), 2015

Abstract

The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, also known as the linguistic relativity hypothesis, refers to the proposal
that the particular language one speaks influences the way one thinks about reality. Linguistic relativity
stands in close relation to semiotic-level concerns with the general relation of language and thought,
and to discourse-level concerns with how patterns of language use in cultural context can affect
thought. Linguistic relativity is distinguished both from simple linguistic diversity and from strict
linguistic determinism. The long history of the hypothesis is sketched with an emphasis on the
hierarchical formulations characteristic of most early efforts. This is followed by a description of the
work of Sapir and Whorf which departs markedly from this earlier tradition and has been influential in
the contemporary period, hence the association of their names with the issue. Whorf's basic argument
about analogical influences is outlined in some detail. Despite widespread interest, quality empirical
research has been in short supply. Recent efforts to remedy this are described. The research is divided
into structure-centered, domain-centered, and behavior-centered types, depending on their manner of
approaching the problem. The contemporary period has seen a rapid improvement in the quality of
some of these efforts. Current trends likely to characterize future research are briefly characterized.

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Language and Thought

Richard J. Gerrig, Mahzarin R. Banaji, in Thinking and Problem Solving, 1994

A Color Memory

When researchers first turned their attention to the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, memory for color was
considered to be an ideal domain for study (see Brown, 1976). Whorf had suggested that language users
“dissect nature along the lines laid down by [their] native languages” (1956, p. 213): Color is a
prototypical continuous dimension divided up in different ways across languages. Researchers set out
with the initial hypothesis that differences in the quantity of color labels would bring about differences
in episodic memory for those colors (e.g., Brown & Lenneberg, 1954; Lenneberg & Roberts, 1956;
Stefflre, Vales, & Morley, 1966). However, two lines of research proved quite powerful in creating the
opinion that the color domain provides a strong instance of “cultural universalism and linguistic
insignificance” (Brown, 1976, p. 152). In the first line of research, Berlin and Kay (1969) studied the
distribution of color terms cross-linguistically and discovered an orderly pattern with which languages
employ from two to eleven basic color terms (see also Kay & McDaniel, 1978). Languages with only two
terms will have black and white (or dark and light). If the language has a third term, it will be red. The
next additions will be sampled from yellow, green, and blue. Brown enters next, followed by some
ordering of purple, pink, orange, and gray. Thus, rather than being arbitrary in the way that Whorf might
have predicted, languages choose to name different colors according to a strict hierarchy. This strictness
suggests that language describes a single external reality, rather than that language divides reality in
different ways.

The second line of research that argued strongly against the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis was carried out by
Rosch (see Rosch, 1977, for a review) who studied the Dani tribe of New Guinea. Rosch asked members
of this group as well as English speakers to try to remember color chips that were either focal or
nonfocal members of the basic color categories. English speakers, who have names for all eight
categories, remembered focal colors better than nonfocal colors. Dani speakers, who have only two
color terms, showed the same pattern of results. Thus, although their language does not differentiate,
for example, the categories red, blue, and green, the Dani responded as if their language did. Rosch's
results created an indelible impression that experiences of color are unaffected by language practices.

Perhaps because the regularities revealed by Berlin and Kay and by Rosch were so impressive,
subsequent research on language and color memory has only rarely penetrated from anthropology into
psychology (but see Hunt & Agnoli, 1991). This later body of research, however, has done much to
restore a balance toward the mutual influence of language and thought in the experience of color (e.g.,
Garro, 1986; Lucy & Schweder, 1979, 1988). Lucy and Schweder (1979), for example, began a series of
experiments with a study that demonstrated a methodological weakness in Rosch's work. The array of
color chips she had used to test both her Dani and English speakers appeared to be biased in a way that
made focal colors a priori more salient than the nonfocal colors. Lucy and Shweder constructed a new
test array that was not subject to this bias. With the unbiased array, they failed to replicate Rosch's
original results. They demonstrated, in fact, that what mattered most for accurate recognition memory
was not focality, but rather the availability of a “referentially precise basic color description” (p. 159).
They concluded that “language appears to be a probable vehicle for human color memory, and the
views developed by Whorf are not jeopardized by the findings of any color research to date” (p. 160).

Kay and Kempton (1984) extended this conclusion with a methodology that eliminated any possible
taint from a biased array. In their initial experiment, they provided their subjects with triads of color
chips all taken from the blue–green continuum. The subjects' task was to indicate which of the three
hues was most different from the other two. The two groups of subjects in the study were speakers of
English, a language which includes a lexical distinction between blue and green, and speakers of
Tarahumara, a language that has only a single lexical item, siyóname, which covers both green and blue
hues. Kay and Kempton argued that, if the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis is correct, “colors near the green–
blue boundary will be subjectively pushed apart by English speakers precisely because English has the
words green and blue, while Tarahumara speakers, lacking the lexical distinction, will show no
comparable distortion” (p. 68). Kay and Kempton's data strongly bore out this prediction: English
speakers distorted the inter-hue distances in line with the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis in 29 out of 30
instances; Tarahumara speakers' performance was close to the prediction of random shrinking or
stretching with a 13 out of 24 split.

In a second experiment, Kay and Kempton invented a methodology that eliminated the utility of the
blue and green labels for their single group of English-speaking subjects. With a special piece of
equipment, Kay and Kempton displayed the triads only a pair at a time. While the experimenters
showed one pair, they labeled one of the chips as greener than the other. While showing the second
pair, they labeled a chip as bluer. Under these circumstances, the color boundary was transparently
irrelevant to judging the distances among the three chips in the triad: the central chip was both green
and blue. Under these circumstances the performance of the English speakers now nearly matched that
of the Tarahumara speakers. Because of its forced irrelevance, the effect of language was eliminated.
From this second experiment, Kay and Kempton argued against a “radical” form of linguistic
determinism. Although language affected thought when it was relevant to the task at hand, it did not
place binding constraints on performance when it became irrelevant.

Kay and Kempton's dramatic results led them to argue for a revision of received wisdom on color
experience. They embraced the evidence that suggests that thought in some ways constrains the
experience of color; the orderly emergence of color terms into the world's languages argues strongly
toward that conclusion. However, a full review of the data also argues strongly toward an influence of
language on thought. Far from being a strong case of the failure of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, color
provides a paradigmatic instance of a domain of experience in which language and thought exert a
mutual influence.

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Time, Anthropology of

E.K. Silverman, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001

6 Language of Time

Unlike spatial deixis, the linguistic study of time remains sparse in anthropology. Yet the famous Sapir–
Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity was initially popularized through the alleged absence of Hopi
verb tenses (now disproved). Still, language shapes our experience of the world, including time. Hence,
the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea are unable to discuss and conceptualize linear,
chronological sequences of events (Lee 1950). They have no time line but only temporal points
organized as noncausal patterns with ‘at most a swelling in value.’ Devoid of linguistic temporal
connections, Trobriand events are self-contained: ‘a series of beings but not becoming.’ Related studies
of language and time include past vs. future-oriented locutions (e.g., Dundes 1969), orality vs. literacy
(Goody 1991), and cognitive ‘maps’ of spatiotemporal passage (Frake 1985).

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Time, Anthropology of
Eric K. Silverman, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition),
2001

Language of Time

Unlike spatial deixis, the linguistic study of time remains sparse in anthropology. Yet the famous Sapir–
Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity was initially popularized through the alleged absence of Hopi
verb tenses (now disproved). Still, language shapes our experience of the world, including time. Hence,
the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea are unable to discuss and conceptualize linear,
chronological sequences of events (Lee, 1950). They have no time line but only temporal points
organized as noncausal patterns with ‘at most a swelling in value.’ Devoid of linguistic temporal
connections, Trobriand events are self-contained: ‘a series of beings but not becoming.’ Related studies
of language and time include past vs. future-oriented locutions (e.g., Dundes, 1969), orality vs. literacy
(Goody, 1991), and cognitive ’maps’ of spatiotemporal passage (Frake, 1985).

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Linguistic Anthropology

A. Duranti, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001

1.1 Linguistic Relativity in the History of Linguistic Anthropology

Linguistic relativity is a general term used to refer to various hypotheses or positions about the
relationship between language and culture (see Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis). Although Sapir and Whorf
differed in their discussion of the relationship between language and culture, and never produced a joint
formulation of what is meant by linguistic relativity, there is no question that the themes and issues
often identified as linguistic relativity are the continuation of the Boasian paradigm. First, Sapir and
Whorf followed Boas's intellectual curiosity for the indigenous languages of North America as a way of
channeling a more general fascination for alternative ways of being in the world and the desire to make
sense of those ways. Second, to the extent to which it started from an emphasis on human diversity,
linguistic relativity was related to cultural relativism, if not a corollary of it. It was accompanied by a
concern for the proper representation of grammatical systems that could not be described using the
categories of European languages. Third, the same antiracist attitude that characterized Boas's views on
human diversity seemed to motivate the lack of value judgment associated with linguistic diversity.
For Sapir, linguistic relativity was a way of articulating what he saw as the struggle between the
individual and society (Mandelbaum 1949). In order to communicate their unique experiences,
individuals need to rely on a public code over which they have little control. Linguistic rules are usually
unconscious, and it is difficult for individual speakers to enter the logic of the linguistic system and alter
it to their liking. In this perspective, linguistic relativity becomes a way of exploring the power that words
have over individuals and groups. It is thus a precursor to more recent topics in linguistic anthropology,
such as language ideologies (see Sect. 4.3).

Sapir never developed the conceptual framework or methodology for testing the implications of these
intuitions about the language faculty. This task was left to another important figure in the history of
linguistic anthropology, Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941), a chemical engineer who worked as an
insurance inspector, taught himself linguistics, and after 1931 entered into contact with Sapir and his
students at Yale. Although Whorf started out sharing several of the basic positions held by Boas and
Sapir on the nature of linguistic classification, he developed his own conceptual framework, which
included the distinction between overt and covert grammatical categories, and an important analytical
tool for understanding what kinds of categorical distinctions speakers are sensitive to—this issue was
later further developed in the work on metapragmatics (Whorf 1956). Contrary to popular belief, Whorf
was not so much concerned with the number of words for the same referent (e.g., ‘snow’) in different
languages, but with the implications that different grammatical systems and lexicons have for the way in
which speakers make inferences about the world. He believed that ways of thinking may develop by
analogy with ‘fashions of speaking,’ a concept that was later revived by Hymes's notion of ‘ways of
speaking.’

Whorf's work was harshly criticized in the 1960s and 1970s, especially after the publication of Berlin and
Kay's (1969) study of color terminology, in which they claimed that lexical labels for basic color terms are
not arbitrary but follow universal principles. But more recent studies have given support to some of
Whorf's ideas (Lucy 1992), and even the universality of basic color terminology and its innate perceptual
saliency have been questioned (e.g., Levinson 2000). Sapir and Whorf's ideas about the unconscious
aspects of linguistic codes continued to play an important part in the history of linguistic anthropology,
and reappeared in the 1980s in the context of a number of research projects, including the study of
language ideology (Kroskrity 2000).

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Whorf, Benjamin Lee (1897–1941)

Joseph L. Subbiondo, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition),
2015

Abstract

Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941) advanced a theory of linguistic relativity in which he maintained that
one's language substantially affected one's worldview. His ‘principle of linguistic relativity,’ as he
referred to it, has often been identified as the Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis because Edward Sapir (1884–
1939) inspired Whorf's development of the concept. In addition to his version of linguistic relativity,
Whorf introduced the allophone that enhanced the study of phonology and he formulated covert
grammatical categories, which explained the role of grammar in modeling reality. In his initiatives,
Whorf drew upon his studies of the Hopi and Maya languages and cultures; asserted a close
interrelationship among language, culture, and thought; integrated wisdom and esoteric traditions;
challenged core tenets of Western science; and incorporated interdisciplinary research into linguistics. In
critiquing many traditional linguistic and scientific assumptions of his era, Whorf's writings
foreshadowed much current research in cultural studies, cognitive psychology, anthropological
linguistics, and consciousness studies.

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Language as Lens

Antoni Gomila, in Verbal Minds, 2012

As we have already mentioned (in Chapter 1), there is plenty of evidence of linguistic influence on verbal
tasks. However, the claim that language shapes our thinking involves the further issue that even in
nonverbal tasks or processes, such as perception, navigation, or memory, language still has a
constitutive influence. To determine how deep this influence goes, and hence which theoretical position
is most empirically supported at this point, is our goal. However, attempts to test the Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis are our natural starting point. The initial challenge, from this point of view, is to prove the
influence of language on nonverbal cognition. There already exists a long tradition of studies that
followed Whorf’s approach to the relationship between language and thinking, with inconclusive
evidence (Brown, 1976, 1986, for reviews of the first decades of research). There have also been
criticisms of Whorf’s account of the Hopi evidence he used as grounds for his view (Malotki, 1983;
Martin, 1986), and even of the repeated commonplaces associated with his name, such as the innuit’s
variety of terms that refer to snow, but unrelated to his proposal (Pullum, 1991). During the eighties and
nineties, he became a target of mock and ridicule: even his anthropological qualifications were
challenged. However, his hypothesis keeps capturing scientific imagination and has found new empirical
evidence.

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Sociolinguistics

J. Holmes, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001

7 Language, Culture, and Ideology

Another important strand of sociolinguistic research which can be traced to the influence of American
anthropological linguists is the quest for a solution to the conundrum of the relationship between
language, culture, and thought. Edward Sapir and his pupil Benjamin Lee Whorf developed the
hypothesis that language influences thought rather than the reverse. The strong form of the Sapir–
Whorf hypothesis claims that people from different cultures think differently because of differences in
their languages. So, native speakers of Hopi perceive reality differently from native speakers of English
because they use different languages, Whorf claimed. Few sociolinguists would accept such a strong
claim, but most accept the weaker claim of linguistic relativity, that language influences perceptions,
thought, and, at least potentially, behavior.

More recently, sociolinguists such as Fairclough (1995) and applied linguists such as Pennycook (1994)
have in quite different ways developed this approach. Fairclough's research uses a CDA approach to
identify and expose the ways in which ideology and power are constantly instantiated and enacted in
the familiar discourse of the media and of everyday interactions. Others have examined such issues as
the continuing and increasingly subtle ways in which sexism, in the form of the derogation of women, or
racist suppression or misrepresentation of ethnic minorities, are sustained through the ways language is
used in the media or in public documents. Pennycook's controversial research also emphasizes critical
awareness; he argues that the imperialist expansion of the English language has been at the cost of local
languages in many countries. Not surprisingly, his views have been contested by those who regard the
development of a wide variety of Englishes around the world as evidence that English no longer belongs
to the English—nor even to the Americans.

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Language and Society: Cultural Concerns

C. Goddard, A. Wierzbicka, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001

1 Introduction

Every language provides its speakers with a unique, intricate and constantly changing medium of
expression. The structure of any language embodies a myriad of prepackaged meanings, a large
proportion of which are language-and-culture specific, in two respects: first, in not having exact
counterparts in other languages of the world, and second, in reflecting, embodying and helping to
perpetuate a particular social, cultural, and historical experience. The purpose of this article is to
demonstrate this in relation to three linguistic domains—words and phraseology, grammar, and
language in use—and to delineate some of the conceptual and methodological issues involved. A
somewhat similar theme is pursued under the aegis of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis (see Sapir–Whorf
Hypothesis), which concerns the influence of language on world-view. This article, however, is
concerned with more subtle and fine-grained effects.

These issues have been of pressing concern to language study from at least the time of Johann Herder
and Wilhelm von Humboldt. They were carried into American linguistics and anthropology in the early
twentieth century by Franz Boas and then Edward Sapir. Similar concerns continued to occupy
anthropology, especially cognitive and symbolic anthropology, in the second half of the twentieth
century, but in linguistics these concerns became marginalized with the ascendency of Chomskyan
generative grammar; though to some extent the flame was kept alight by the ethnographic wing of
sociolinguistics in the work of Dell Hymes and associates (cf. Bauman and Sherzer 1974; Gumperz and
Hymes 1986). In the 1980s and 1990s, however, the dominance of generative grammar began to wane,
leading to what one commentator dubbed ‘the greening of linguistics,’ with renewed interest in
pragmatics, functionalism, anthropological linguistics, and cross-cultural semantics (cf. Foley 1997;
Goddard 1998). In a parallel development, mainstream psychology became more interested in
ethnopsychology and in the new field of cultural psychology (Shweder 1990, Schweder and Sullivan
1993). These developments set the stage for a revitalization of studies into the interconnections
between language, culture, and society.

A complex of methodological problems connected with cross-cultural semantic analysis confronts this
emergent interdisciplinary field. How can one ensure that any set of semantic descriptors is not biased
by the language from which it is drawn? How to achieve the maximum resolution of complex meanings?
How can the process of semantic analysis be freed from subjectivity and vagueness? According to the
most well-developed model of cross-cultural semantic analysis, the ‘natural semantic metalanguage’
(NSM) approach, the most promising solution to these problems depends on identifying a viable set of
universal semantic primes (or primitives), i.e., simple concepts which have linguistic exponents (as words
or word-like elements) in all languages (cf. Wierzbicka 1996; Goddard and Wierzbicka 1994, in press).
Cross-linguistic research indicates the existence of at least 60 semantic primes, including (using English
exponents): i, you, someone, something, people, do, happen, say, think, know, want, good, bad, big,
small, this, one, two, other, the same, when/time, where/place, because, if, can, not, like. This restricted
and universal vocabulary of simple meanings can be used as a kind of ‘semantic bridge’ in terms of
which to articulate complex language-specific and culture-specific meanings in maximum detail. Because
it is grounded in simple words of ordinary language, this approach makes hypotheses about subtleties of
meaning accessible to the intuitions and judgments of native speakers, thus improving the verifiability of
the analyses. The NSM approach is not universally accepted, however, and much valuable work in cross-
cultural semantics is still conducted in essentially informal terms.

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