Linguistic relativity hypothesis and its implications

Linguistic relativity hypothesis argues that humans see colors less with their eyes than with their language. (Fountain, 1999) The linguistic relativity hypothesis is important to help in understanding the reasoning behind the way that thought processes develop with the different cultures. The thought processes determine how language comes about and the reasons that the same word can mean different things with different cultures.

In the eyes of a linguist, colors are categorized in eleven words. But, in different cultures the number of words to categorize colors is different. Some cultures have as few as five words to categorize colors. If one culture categorizes color differently from another culture, they would perceive it different as well. What may be green to one culture may be blue to another culture. Linguistic categories affect the way the world is seen. The results support the idea of linguistic relativity if they show color perception as being dependent on categorizing through language.

Results of experiments guided by pointed questions have shown evidence that language shapes thought. (Begley, 2009) People who speak different languages show dramatically different results of cognitive tasks in all manners. Some cultures use gender to symbolize different words, such as female meaning death in one culture, where it would be male meaning death in another culture. The results have also shown that shades of colors with distinct names help people have a better memory of the different colors, such as pink being a lighter shade of red.

"Relativism is…a family of views whose common theme is that some central aspect of experience, thought, evaluation, or even reality is somehow relative to something else." (Swoyer, 2003) The standards of justification, moral principles, and truths have somehow shown relative to language, culture, or biological makeup. For instance, being polite in one culture may require someone to shake hands to introduce themselves, but another culture may view handshakes as inappropriate gestures. Words that create thought have different meanings as well in different cultures.

There are different kinds of relativism, such as descriptive and normative. Descriptive relativism is empirical claims that state that certain groups in fact have different modes of thought and standards of reasoning. It describes the principles and practices of different cultural groups. Normative relativism actually has two sides. Anti-realist agrees that there is no such thing as absolute or completely objective facts about moral truth or moral justifications. Realist agrees that once things are relativized to frameworks, facts are present about morality, epistemic justifications, and truth.

There must be an objective connection between speaking a language or belonging to a culture and how one thinks if speaking the language or belonging to the culture leads to different modes of thought. The words that different cultures use to express different thoughts are actually determined by the culture itself. One culture will view the meaning of a word one way, while another culture will view a different meaning for the same word. Or, the meaning will be the same for both cultures, but the word itself will be different in each culture.

A measure of realism is presupposed by relativism. Without concepts, beliefs, or modes of reasoning, different cultural groups could not be different in respects to them. The concepts, beliefs, and modes of reasoning shape languages and the meanings of the words in languages for each culture. The linguistic relativity hypothesis is important in the understanding of the different modes of reasoning for different thought patterns. The hypothesis results reveal facts about how culture, language, beliefs, concepts, and even biological makeup shape how people use different words and meanings in the different languages.

Annotated Bibliography

Begley, S. (2009, July 8). What's in a Word? Retrieved from The Daily Beast: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/07/08/what-s-in-a-word.html

The Daily Beast is a news website. This article discusses linguistic experiments performed Lera Boroditsky, a psychologists from Stanford University, that showed evidence that language does shape thought. Some cultures used gender specific words that have different meanings. The evidence also showed how shades of different colors with distinct names actually improve memory with the different cultures.

Fountain, H. (1999, Mar 30). Proof Positive that People See Colors with the Tougue. Retrieved from New York Times: http://we.ics.purdue.edu/~felluga/NewYorkTimes.html

Purdue is a scholarly source that connects to an article with the New York Times, a news source. The article discusses how the use of the meaning of colors in different cultures can shape how language is used and the different meanings of the words can and do change from one culture to another in languages. It discusses how the linguistic relativity hypothesis argues that colors are seen more through language than with sight.