The Shadow of Benjamin Lee Whorf: Continuing Issues in Linguistic Relativism

The systematic relationship of language and culture was first described about 1750 by Giambattista Vico. The idea, labeled linguistic relativism, underwent development in nineteenth-century Europe. In the U.S., descriptions of northern American Indian languages stimulated considerable interest in the language-culture relationship. Sapir, Whorf and others perceived that language not only relates to culture, but may direct it. In both strong and weak forms, linguistic relativism has stimulated research, theorizing, and controversy over several decades. While not all aspects of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis have been supported by research, a large body of the ideas can potentially be applied to the understanding of problems in intercultural communication, including culture-based instruction in “foreign ” languages