A Research On The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is an influential theory in the linguistic world in the west. It is also called Linguistic Relativity. And its core is that people live both in the objective and the subjective world; different languages have different structures, and these structures influence the language users' thinking habit leading them to observe the world in different ways. Henceforward, they have different mental perceptions and different views on the world. Language acts as not only a tool of thinking for human beings but also influences and restricts human beings' thought.The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis originated in German linguistics tradition. In the eighteenth century, German scholar Herder once put forth that language was the tool, the content and the style of man's thought. German linguist Humboldt further asserted that language was the formation organ of 'thought', every language consisted of a peculiar view on the world. Boas created American descriptive linguistics by emphasizing on the description of language structure. And his idea about the classification of experience in language served as the basic argument for the hypothesis. Sapir accepted Boas' viewpoint about language and thought. He believed that language was a filtering mechanism, it reflected reality, thus influenced and restricted man's thought. Sapir's view was further developed by his student Whorf. Based on his experience in a fire insurance company and his linguistic study by contrasting the linguistic structures of Hopi and English, Whorf came to the conclusion that language system was both the tool and the modeler of thought. It was the principle and guide of man's comprehensive thought, thus forming the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.As soon as the hypothesis was put forward, it aroused great interest and debates in the academic world. The central issue was whether the statement of the theory was 'authentic' or not. The main method was empirical research. The color experiments by Ray, Lantz, Brown, Herman, Bloom's counterfactual marking investigation as well as the researches in the cognitive field showed some favorable evidence to it. However, experiments by Lenneberg, Berlin, and Palmer etc. provided the opposite evidence. In the sixties of the twentieth century, Piaget's cognition hypothesis which held thinking precedes language came into being and Chomsky's theory which thought all languages developed from human innate universal grammar became prevalent, gradually the hypothesis declined.The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is the inheritance and development of the academic tradition of language and thought study. The use of empirical research marks the new stage in the study on this issue. People understand the objective world by the way of language, and necessarily this understanding is influenced and restricted by the language. Language really influences thought, but does determine thought. The differences between languages are limited, so the cross-languages understanding is possible.