The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis posits that language influences thought processes and perception of the world, suggesting that speakers of different languages have distinct ways of thinking. Numerous studies, such as those comparing Navajo and English speakers, indicate that linguistic structures can affect cognitive classification, but other research challenges this by showing universal perceptions across languages, particularly in areas like color categorization. The ongoing debate highlights varying levels of complexity in understanding the relationship between language and cognition, with some evidence supporting linguistic influence on cognition, especially in grammatical structures.

1. Language and Thought: The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
One of the most important and long-standing debates in studies
of language and
behavior involves the relationship between language and
thought processes. This
relationship is particularly important to the cross-cultural study
of language
because each culture is associated with a given language as a
vehicle for its expression.
How does culture influence language? And how does language
influence
culture?
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, also referred to as linguistic
relativity, suggests
that speakers of different languages think differently, and that
they do so because
of the differences in their languages. Because different cultures
typically have different
languages, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is especially important
for understanding
cultural differences (and similarities) in thought and behavior as
a function
of language.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is important to verify, because if
correct, it suggests
that people of different cultures think differently, just by the
very nature,
structure, and function of their language. Their thought
processes, their associations,
their ways of interpreting the world—even the same events we
perceive—
may be different because they speak a different language and
this language has
helped shape their thought patterns. This hypothesis also

2. suggests that people who
speak more than one language may actually have different
thought patterns when
speaking different languages.
Many studies have examined language–cognition issues since
Edward Sapir
and Benjamin Whorf first proposed their hypothesis in the
1950s. In one of the
earliest language studies, Carroll and Casagrande (1958)
compared Navajo and
English speakers. They examined the relationship between the
system of shape classification
in the Navajo language and the amount of attention children pay
to
shape when classifying objects. Similar to the Japanese
language described earlier
in this chapter, the Navajo language has the interesting
grammatical feature that
certain verbs of handling (for example, “to pick up,” “to drop”)
require
special linguistic forms depending on what kind of object is
being handled. A total
of 11 such linguistic forms describe different shapes—round
spherical objects, round
thin objects, long flexible things, and so forth. Noting how
much more complex this
linguistic feature is in Navajo than in English, Carroll and
Casagrande (1958)
Culture, Language, and Communication 241
suggested that such linguistic features might play a role in
influencing cognitive processes.
In their experiment, they compared Navajo- and English-
dominant children to
see how often they used shape, form, or type of material to
categorize objects. The
Navajo-dominant children were significantly more likely to

3. categorize by shape than
were the English-dominant children. In the same study, Carroll
and Casagrande
(1958) also reported that the performance of low-income
African American Englishspeaking
children was similar to that of European American children.
This finding is
particularly important because the African American children,
unlike the European
Americans, were not accustomed to blocks and form-board toys.
This study provided
early support for the idea that the language we speak influences
the kind of
thoughts we have, and later studies provided more support (e.g.,
Bloom, 1981;
Garro, 1986; Gordon, 2004; Hoosain, 1986, 1991; Kay &
Kempton, 1984; Lin &
Schwanenflugel, 1995; Lucy, 1992; Santa & Baker, 1975).
At the same time, findings from other studies challenged the
Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis. For instance, Berlin and Kay (1969) tested the claim
that “The continuous
gradation of color which exists in nature is represented in
language by a series
of discrete categories.… There is nothing inherent either in the
spectrum or the
human perception of it which would compel its division in this
way. The specific
method of division is part of the structure of English” (p. 4). To
test this claim,
Berlin and Kay (1969) undertook a study of the distribution of
color terms in
20 languages. They asked international university students in
the United States to
list the “basic” color terms in each of their native languages.
They then asked these

4. foreign students to identify from an array of glass color chips
the most typical or
best examples of a basic color term the researchers specified.
Berlin and Kay (1969)
found a limited number of basic color terms in any language.
They also found that
the color chips chosen as best examples of these basic terms
tended to fall in clusters
they termed focal points. In languages that had a basic term for
bluish colors, the
best example of the color was found to be the same “focal blue”
for speakers of
all the languages. These findings suggested that people in
different cultures perceive
colors in much the same way despite radical differences in their
languages.
Berlin and Kay’s findings were later confirmed by a series of
experiments conducted
by Rosch. In her experiments, Rosch (for example, 1973) set out
to test just
how culturally universal these focal points were. She compared
two languages that
differ markedly in the number of basic color terms: English,
with multiple color
terms, and Dani, which has only two color terms. Dani is the
language spoken by
a Stone Age tribe living in the highlands of Irian Jaya,
Indonesian New Guinea.
One color term, mili, was found to include both “dark” and
“cold” colors (for
example, black, green, and blue), while the second color term,
mola, included both
“light” and “warm” colors (for example, white, red, and
yellow). Rosch also
explored the relationship between language and memory. She
argued that if the

5. Whorfian position were correct, Dani’s lack of a rich color
lexicon would inhibit
Dani speakers’ ability to discriminate and remember colors. As
it happened,
Dani speakers did not confuse color categories any more than
did speakers of
English (Heider & Oliver, 1972). Nor did Dani speakers
perform differently from
English speakers on memory tasks.
Berlin and Kay (1969) also examined 78 languages and found
that 11 basic
color terms form a universal hierarchy. Some languages, such as
English and
242 Chapter 9
German, use all 11 terms; others, such as Dani (New Guinea),
use as few as two.
Further, they noticed an evolutionary order in which languages
encode these universal
categories. For example, if a language has three color terms,
those
three terms describe black, white, and red. This hierarchy of
color names in
human language is as follows:
1. All languages contain terms for white and black.
2. If a language contains three terms, it also contains a term for
red.
3. If a language contains four terms, it also contains a term for
either green or
yellow (but not both).
4. If a language contains five terms, it contains terms for both
green and yellow.
5. If a language contains six terms, it also contains a term for
blue.
6. If a language contains seven terms, it also contains a term for
brown.
7. If a language contains eight or more terms, it also contains a

6. term for purple,
pink, orange, gray, or some combination of these.
Other studies have challenged the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and
the idea of linguistic
relativity (e.g., Au, 1983; Liu, 1985; Takano, 1989). In a review
concerning
the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, Pinker (1995) concluded that many
of the earlier studies
claiming linguistic relativity were severely flawed. He then
pointed to the fact
that we can think without words and language, suggesting that
language does not
necessarily determine our thoughts. He cited evidence of deaf
children who clearly
think while lacking a language, but soon invent one; of isolated
adults who grew
up without language but still could engage in abstract thinking;
how babies, who
have no words, can still do very simple forms of arithmetic
(Wynn, 1992);
and how thought is not just made up of words and language, but
is also visual
and nonverbal.
So what’s the bottom line? Perhaps the best way to make sense
of this area of
study comes from an analysis of the basic Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis, published by
Fishman years ago (1960). Many studies of the Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis read as if
it were only one hypothesis; actually, there are several different
Sapir-Whorf
hypotheses. Fishman published a comprehensive breakdown of
the most important
ways the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has been discussed (see Table
9.1). In his description,
these different approaches are ordered in increasing levels of

7. complexity.
Table 9.1 Fishman’s Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Schema
Data of Language
Characteristics
Data of Cognitive Behavior
Linguistic Data Nonlinguistic Data
Lexical/Semantic Level 1* Level 2
Grammatical Level 3 Level 4**
*Least sophisticated
**Most sophisticated
Culture, Language, and Communication 243
Two factors determine the level at which a given version of the
hypothesis might
fall. The first factor relates to the particular aspect of language
that is of interest—
for example, the lexicon or the grammar. The second factor
relates to the cognitive
behavior of the speakers of a given language—for example,
cultural themes or nonlinguistic
data such as a decision-making task. Of the four levels, Level 1
is the
least complex; Level 4 is the most complex. Levels 3 and 4 are
actually closer to
Whorf’s original ideas in that they concern the grammar or
syntax of language as
opposed to its lexicon.
In reviewing the literature on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, it is
important
to keep in mind exactly which level of the hypothesis is being
tested. Few
studies test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis at Fishman’s Level 3 or
4. A considerable
amount of research compares lexical differences and linguistic
behavior
(Fishman’s Level 1) or nonlinguistic behavior (Fishman’s Level
2). Most of this

8. research is at Level 2, comparing lexical differences with
nonlinguistic behaviors.
When such comparisons have shown differences, language is
assumed to have
caused these differences.
Viewed according to Fishman’s classifications, the best-studied
area is lexical
differences between languages, which provides some of the
weaker support for the
hypothesis. This makes sense, because the lexicon seems to be
only minimally
related to thought processes, which may account for some
skepticism about the
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. A less-studied area, however—that of
syntactic and grammatical
differences between languages—provides some evidence for the
claim that
language influences cognition. Perhaps stronger evidence will
be found in future
studies of how the pragmatic systems of different languages
influence speakers’
thought processes.