What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis? While linguists generally agree that the weaker Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, also known as linguistic relativism, can be shown to be true to some extent, there are criticisms of the stronger form of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, also known as linguistic determinism.

The hypothesis of linguistic relativity, also known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis /səˌpɪər ˈwɔːrf/, the Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, is a principle suggesting that the structure of a language affects its speakers’ worldview or cognition, and thus people’s perceptions are relative to their spoken language.

Developed by Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that language determines thought. The most significant corollary of this is that if some cultures lack words for an idea, they don’t have a concept of that idea.

The linguistic area got revolutionized by Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf with the introduction of the theory of linguistic relativism. Thus, according to the Sapir-Whorf-theory, language is more than just a communication tool – it determines our perception of reality and influences our behavior.

This hypothesis is controversial in part because it appears to deny the possibility of a universal groundwork for human cognition, and in part because some findings taken to support it have not reliably replicated.

Benjamin Lee Whorf

Neo-Whorfianism, a weak version of the controversial Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, holds that our thoughts are subtly influenced by the grammatical structures of our native language. One area of investigation in this vein focuses on how the grammatical gender of nouns affects the way we perceive the corresponding objects.

Linguistic Determinism suggests that one’s language determines the ways one’s mind constructs categories. A more accepted notion of the relationship between language and thought is that while interrelated, neither language nor culture creates a direct causal link to the other.

In Orwell’s famous dystopian novel, 1984, the fictional language of Newspeak provides a strong example of linguistic determinism. The restricted vocabulary and grammar make it impossible to speak or even think of rebelling against the totalitarian government, instead aligning its speakers with the ideology of Ingsoc.

Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. Psycholinguistics is concerned with the cognitive faculties and processes that are necessary to produce the grammatical constructions of language.

The gist of the crosslinguistic approach is a comparative. Summary Box. There is considerable variation among the grammatical organizations of languages of the world. Crosslinguistic research in child language compares developmental patterns in language acquisition of children exposed to different languages.

Because a developmental and linguistic interdependence between a person’s primary language (L1) and secondary language (L2) has been proposed (Cummins, 1979), theories on cross-linguistic transfer may provide a better understanding of how a student’s L1 knowledge influences his or her ability to acquire literacy in L2.

Cross-linguistic transfer is defined as language learners’ use of linguistic knowledge of one of their languages to leverage the learning of another language. Theories on cross-linguistic transfer shed light upon the role of L1 in promoting L2 or foreign language learning.

Those aspects of language that develop differently across languages show how the child changes/adjusts based on environmental influences. This gives us clues to how the environment influences the child.

Definition. Cross-linguistic influence (CLI) is typically defined as the influence that knowledge of one language has on an individual’s learning or use of another language. This influence can involve various aspects of language.

Haspelmath (2010) defines comparative concepts as theoretical concepts used for crosslinguistic comparison, in typology or other approaches to grammatical theory for that matter. – exhibit different grammatical behavior in one and the same language (Dixon 1977).

The studies reviewed indicate that children transfer a variety of component skills from their first to their second language, including phonological awareness, word reading, word knowledge, and comprehension strategies.

Students who have strong first language skills are able to acquire the second language more easily due to language transfer. The mother tongue could be used as support for the second language acquisition process, which makes the learning process easier for students and teachers.

Language transfer (also known as L1 interference, linguistic interference, and crosslinguistic influence) is most commonly discussed in the context of English language learning and teaching, but it can occur in any situation when someone does not have a native-level command of a language, as when translating into a …

Negative transfer occurs when the process of solving an earlier problem makes later problems harder to solve. It is contrasted with positive transfer, which occurs when solving an earlier problem makes it easier to solve a later problem.

2.3 Explanations: Transfer errors A transfer error occurs when the person is writing in the target L2 language using their L1 grammar. ‘Transfer of structure’ arises when the learner utilizes some L1 feature (phonological, lexical, grammatical, or pragmatic’) rather than that of the target language.

The term fossilization or interlanguage fossilization is also used in linguistics to refer to the process in which incorrect linguistic features become a permanent part of the way a person speaks and writes a new language, especially when not learned as a young child. …

In the process of learning a second language, fossilization caused by the incorrect application of learning strategies is the most common. The appropriate application of learning strategies helps process the TL input and therefore improves L2 learning quality.

In oral teaching activities, teachers should guide students to focus on language accuracy, requiring students to express meaning in the form of monitoring and encourage them to correct or amend once they are aware of errors. Carefully designed feedback can prevent the formation of fossilization effectively.

Paleontologists deal with two basic kinds of fossils: body fossils and trace fossils.