Language and thought

Sapir-whorf hypothesis (1954) - Language relativism: weaker version of the hypothesis, stating that language use influences thought - (Lucy, 2005) describes it as “habitual cognition” not that language completely or permanently blinds speakers to other aspects of reality. Rather they provide speakers with a systematic default bias in their habitual response tendencies - Military trained: tend to have different cardinal references “north, south, east west” instead of “up, down, right, left”; “Watch your six” meaning watch your back referencing the position of digits on an analogue clock - Language determinism: absolute version of the hypothesis language use determines thought - Implies that people cannot comprehend ideas and concepts not represented in the language (“Hygge” a Dutch word that does not have a direct translation in English but means a pleasant togetherness, rooted in Dutch culture) Relations between language and thought can be seen in: - Conceptual metaphors: demonstrates that ideas can be recoverable from language use “Argument is war” where people describe arguments using the language of war such as “attack”, “defend”, “won”, and “lost” “Anger is fire” where the emotion anger is associated with characteristics of a fire “fuming mad”, “fiery temper” - Fixed expressions / idiomatic phrases - Lexical choice - Process verbs: cognitive, material… - Transitive and intransitive verbs - Agent deletion - Passivisation - Thematic choices (foregrounding, backgrounding) (Chomsky) Universal grammar: language and thought have little relationship because all languages share the same underlying structure - Argues that people are born with a number of highly specific grammatical rules built into their heads English adjectives are ordered according to: opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, and purpose. Native speakers intuitively know that “a big brown bag” is correct instead of “a brown big bag” although the meaning of the phrases are the same.