This document discusses the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which proposes that the structure of a language influences its speakers' worldview or cognition. It covers several related concepts, including linguistic relativity, which argues that language conditions thought; semiotic relativity, which examines sign systems; and discursive relativity, which considers how language is tied to social and historical contexts. The document also explores applications of language relativity in educational practice and applied linguistic research, noting a growing interest in the language-culture relationship within the field.

1. THE SAPIR- WHORF
HYPOTHESIS

2. CONTENTS
01
03
02
04
Re-Thinking
Linguistic Relativity
Semiotic Relativity
Linguistic Relativity
Discursive Relativity
05 Language Relativity in
Educational Practice
06 Language Relativity in
Applied Linguistic
Research
07
Current Attempts to Capture the
Language/Culture Relation in
Applied Linguistics
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

3. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
“Language is a guide to “social reality” . . . it powerfully conditions all our thinking about social problems and
processes. Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as
ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the
medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially
without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of
communication or reflection.
The fact of the matter is that the “real world” is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits
of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social
reality.
The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different
labels attached . . . We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language
habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation” (Sapir, 1962, pp. 9–68).

4. 01
Re-Thinking Linguistic Relativity

5. Linguistic relativity, or linguistic determinism is the concept
that language and its structures limit and determine human
knowledge or thought, as well as thought processes such as
categorization, memory, and perception. The term implies
that people's native languages will affect their thought
process and therefore people will have different thought
processes based on their mother tongues. Linguistic
determinism argues that individuals experience the world
based on the structure of the language they habitually use
(Hickmann, 2000: 410).

6. The strong version of linguistic relativity has
been pretty much discarded, for a variety of
convincing reasons:

7. A case in point is the debate between Basil Bernstein and William
Labov. Bernstein had linked speakers’ different ways with words (i.e.,
elaborated vs. restricted codes) with the social class of these speakers. He
suggested that middle-class speakers use more elaborated codes, i.e., assume
less prior knowledge of their listeners, than working-class speakers, who assume
greater shared knowledge on the part of their listeners, and thus use more
restricted codes. Labov (1972, as cited in Davies and Elder, 2004: 235) violently
rejected Bernstein’s views, showing that poor black adolescents in New York’s
inner city used as “elaborated” codes as Bernstein’s middle-class whites, thus
dispelling the idea that social context conditions language use.

8. 02
Semiotic Relativity

9. Semiotics is the theory of
signs, and semiotic is the
analysis of systems using
signs or signals for the
purpose of
communication (semiotic
systems).
Semiotic Relativity

10. Semiotic Relativity

11. 03
Linguistic Relativity

12. 2
1
3
Linguistic Relativity

13. Linguistic Relativity

14. 04
Discursive Relativity

15. 01
02
03
04
05
06
Discursive Relativity

16. Thus, language as communicative practice is tied to a person’s
position in time, space, social and historical relations, and his/her
social and emotional identity. Language relativity will require
taking into account phenomena that have remained too long under
the radar of applied linguistic research, i.e., cultural knowledge
and its reproduction (Hill & Mannheim, 1992, p. 398).

17. Language Relativity in Educational Practice
05

18. Language Relativity in
Educational Practice

19. Language Relativity in
Educational Practice
Teachers can show their
students, for example, how the
English grammar encourages
its speakers to attend to reality
in a certain way when they
speak.

20. 06
Language Relativity in Applied Linguistic Research

21. Language Relativity in
Applied Linguistic Research

22. Language relativity will require taking into account
phenomena that have remained too long under the radar of
applied linguistic research, i.e., cultural knowledge and its
reproduction, and “the more chaotic and inchoate sides of
language and social life”
Because it enables applied linguists to recapture the early
holistic view of imagine by Boas and Sapir, it feels more valid
than positivistically oriented research approaches that have to
reduce the evidence to what is rationally researchable.
From a methodological perspective, the principle of language
relativity suggests adopting an ecological/phenomenological
approach to research in applied linguistics As such it is both
inspirational and risky.
The social and cultural turn in SLA within
the last ten years has made the language
relativity principle more relevant in applied
linguistics
Language Relativity in
Applied Linguistic Research

23. 07
Current Attempts to Capture the Language/
Culture Relation in Applied Linguistics

24. Current Attempts to Capture the
Language/Culture Relation in
Applied Linguistics

25. Thank you
for listening