Linguistic Relativity

The assignment of meaning to a message concerns human perceptions about the relationship between symbols and their referents. Language is used to think as well as to speak. Linguistic relativity is the degree to which language influences human thought and meanings. It proposes that in human thought language intervenes between the symbols and the ideas to which the symbols refer. Linguistic relativity proposes that language and thought are so tied together that a person's language determines the categories of thought open to the person. Linguistic relativity is also called the Whorfian hypothesis, after its main creator, Benjamin Lee Whorf.

The Whorfian hypothesis is a reaction against the nominalist view of lan­guage presented by Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle taught his students that knowledge of reality is not affected by language. He regarded language as an arbitrary outer form of thought. In Aristotle's view, the thought was the same regardless of the language. Aristotle's position was that any thought can be expressed in any language, and translatability between languages does not present a problem. This view went largely unchallenged until late in the nine­teenth century (Steinfatt, 1988a, 1989).

Linguistic relativity proposes that language influences three different areas of human thought and cognition: (1) the perceptions and cognitions held by an individual such as perceptions of color, of lateness, or of size; (2) the cognitive structure of the individual and the worldview the individual holds; (3) the structure of logic itself and of what is perceived as logical (Stein­fatt, 1988). For linguists, anthropologists, and scholars of intercultural com­munication, the Whorfian hypothesis proposed a new paradigm, a new way of thinking about language and culture.

Examples of the Whorfian Hypothesis

Language influences our thinking in an unconscious manner, which is one reason why the notion of linguistic relativity is so fascinating to most of us. Whorf and Sapir claimed that a cultural system is embodied in the language of the people who speak the language. This cultural framework shapes the thoughts of the lan­guage's speakers. An individual is typically not aware of this indirect but per­vasive influence. We think in the words and the meanings of our language, which in turn is an expression of our culture. Only when an individual learns a second language and tries to move back and forth to his/her mother tongue does the individual become aware of the influence that language has on perception.

Consider some examples of linguistic relativity. In India, the Hindi lan­guage has no single words that are equivalent to the English words "uncle" and "aunt." Instead, Hindi has different words for your father's older brother, father's younger brother, mother's older brother, mother's older brother-in-law, and so forth. This diversity of terms suggests that the inter­personal relationships involved between an individual and his/her uncles and aunts are much more important in India than in nations where English is spoken. Many languages in addition to Hindi are richer than English in the number of words for different family and kinship relationships (Russian, for example).

In general, when a language has a large number of words for the same object or class of objects, that object is relatively important. Thus Dine (the language spoken by the Navajo) has thousands of words for the English expression "to go," the infinitive showing action.

To what extent does language structure thought? Some languages have no verb tense, so the speakers do not differentiate between the past, present, and the future. To the Hopi, time is considered part of the flow of events. The Hopi expression for "he runs," wari, could mean he runs, he ran, he used to run, or he will run. In contrast, an English speaker has to put a tense marker on every verb. Further, in the Hopi language, verbs only refer to something of short duration, like a lightening flash or a puff of smoke. Anything of long duration, such as "working in the fields all summer," is a noun (Stevenson, 1994, p. 57). Such qualities of a language shape the way in which the Hopi people perceive the world. Note that it is not just the words alone in the Hopi language that shape perceptions, but also the grammar of the language, which is very different from European languages. The uniqueness of Hopi in comparison to Indo-European languages played a key role in helping Ben­jamin Lee Whorf create the idea of linguistic relativity.

Even among the European family of languages, however, there are impor­tant differences. Imagine the Germans looking at a masculine moon (der Mond), The French on the other side of the Rhine look at the same moon, but it is feminine (la lune). The sun is feminine in German (die Sonne) and masculine in French (le soleil). To the English across the English Channel, the moon and the sun are neither masculine nor feminine. Such gender differences in languages influence how the Germans, French, and English perceive the same objects.

The most famous example used to illustrate the concept of linguistic rela­tivity is the Inuit language. It is claimed that the Inuit (a tribe of Native Americans in northwestern Canada) have twelve words for "snow" and 42 types of snow to describe different types —wet snow, packed snow, or powder snow—in English, speakers must use an adjective plus the noun. Because they have more options of words to convey shades of meaning about snow, one could reasonably infer that snow is really important to the Inuit.

The Navahos with their nuclear concept of speech, the Zulus with their 39 colors of green, the aborigines with their dreamtime and the Lapps with their eight seasons provide us with striking insights and unique thought and speech processes that intrigue and fascinate those of us who have time to study them.

Some of the research on the Whorfian hypothesis has been conducted on color. Typically, a color spectrum (showing the various colors of the rainbow) is divided into a large number of color chips, each with a particular shade of color (for example, perhaps twenty-five color chips represent the various shades of blue-green, another twenty-five chips represent shades of red-yel­low, etc.). Monolingual respondents are asked to select the color chips that they can easily identify with a single word (such as "green," "blue," "yellow," "red," "orange," etc, in English). While most Asian and Western languages break the color spectrum into the same color categories, the speakers of another language have different colors that they recognize. For instance, the Zuni Indians of the southwestern United States have a single color term for the entire yellow and orange part of the color spectrum, while English speak­ers distinguish between orange and yellow as two different colors. A partic­ular color chip is called "yellow" by a native speaker of English, while the same chip is called "yellow-orange" by a Zuni. The categories formed by words influence thinking and perception.

The body of color research in the linguistic relativity tradition shows that all languages contain terms for white and black. If a language contains three color terms, one is for red. The least common colors in various languages are orange, gray, pink, and purple.

Mean­while, Arabs are a little unbelievably said to have six thousand words for camels and camel accoutrements, and Tasmanian aborigines have a word for every specific type of tree but no word that means just tree. Poignantly, the Araucanian Indians of Chile have a variety of words for describing dif­ferent degrees of hunger.

Tahitians have many names for one species of fish that they catch in the lagoons. Each noun denotes the size and the stage of maturity of the species—thereby causing and requiring a close and discerning focus both in speaking and in observation. Tahitians also use a whole glossary of words for the coconut, giving it a series of noun designators related to the size, ma­turity, and use of each coconut. Further, there is a whole lexicon of terms that apply to the coconut tree.

The Whorfian hypothesis of linguistic relativity has provided a major con­tribution to intercultural communication. The hypothesis demonstrates the importance of language in communication. More generally, Whorf and Sapir showed that language, thought, and culture are closely connected. Lan­guage, which is a part of culture, affects human behavior through thought and perception, thus linking culture to human behavior.

Cultural Factors in Interpersonal Communication

Some intercultural communication scholars today argue that the essence of the field is the actual dialogue between culturally unalike individuals. "The study of intercultural dialogue should be at the center of intercultural com­munication research and theory" (Hart, 1997). Scholars should record and analyze these conversations as the basic data of intercultural communica­tion, so as to identify where and why miscommunication occurs.

Talk and Silence

The value of talk versus silence in a conversation varies greatly depending on the culture. For example, in comparison to European Americans, Asians are much more reluctant to talk. An Asian is more likely to use indirect expression to convey an intended meaning (remember our discus­sions about high-context cultures?). Silence itself may be a very important message.

A few years ago, Dr. Osmo Wiio, a communication scholar from Finland, came to the United States as a visiting professor. While riding a public bus to the campus, a woman sitting next to him struck up a conversation, intending to be friendly. "I see by your clothes that you may be a European. What coun­try are you from?" Wiio replied curtly, trying to discourage further conversation: "Finland." He held his newspaper so as to cover his face. But his fellow passenger stated, "Oh, how wonderful! Please tell me all about Finland," Pro­fessor Wiio felt very angry that a complete stranger had initiated a conversa­tion with him. In Finland, a cultural norm discourages striking up a conversation with strangers in public places.

At the University of New Mexico, a typical class may include several Navajo or Pueblo students. They are unlikely to ask questions during class sessions or to volunteer answers to the teacher's questions. To do so would be culturally inappropriate; it would not be the Native American way. When a teacher calls on one of the Native Americans with a question, there is usu­ally a pause of several seconds. The impatient teacher is likely to call on another student rather than wait for a response. From the Native American student's viewpoint, an important question should not be answered immedi­ately, without carefully thinking out the answer.

For the Japanese, the silence between two utterances in a conversation belongs to the previous speaker, who indicates how long the silence should continue. The listener should show respect to the previous speaker's wish for silence, especially if the speaker is older or of higher status than the listener.

As the above examples illustrate, cultural differences in talk versus silence interfere with the effectiveness of intercultural communication. Once again, respect for and knowledge about another culture's values are the keys to avoiding miscommunication.