Cognition

Paper Summary:

This paper explores Benjamin Lee Whorf's theory regarding the inter-relationship between language and thought. The paper looks at the large body of evidence supporting the effects of language on memory and perception. The paper concentrates on several examples, such as the cultural differences shaping memory for colors and bilingualism. The paper also summarizes studies by leading researchers in the field, including Lenneberg and Roberts, Heider, DeValois and Jacobs and Schooler and Engstler-Schooler.

From the Paper:

"Benjamin Lee Whorf (1956) proposed one of the most well known theories regarding the inter-relationship between a language and thought. Whorf's hypothesis of linguistic relativity (referred to as the whorfian hypothesis) argued that language determines or influences our thinking. It is useful to distinguish between the strong and the weak form of the Whorfian hypothesis (hunt and Agnoli, 1991). According to the strong hypothesis, our language determines our thinking, implying that some thoughts expressible in one language will not be expressible in a second language. This raises the issue of 'translatability': can all sentences in one language be translated accurately into another language? There is little evidence supporting the strong hypothesis, and therefore, it will not be considered any further."

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