Linguistic Relativity: the Impact of Language & Society | THE ELLIPSIS... - 0 views
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As English speakers, we experience life in English. Our every thought is formulated with the English terminology available to us. But how might Our experience and Our thinking be different if Our primary language was not English but German or Arabic?
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It is this very question that has motivated linguists for hundreds of years to grapple with the validity of linguistic relativity
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When we consider the theory of linguistic relativity, we must take into account that languages develop within and emerge from distinct cultures
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Those who subscribe to the theory of linguistic relativity believe that a person’s way of thinking is influenced by the language he or she speaks
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Language is a result of society. Therefore, language does not deserve the credit for shaping the way we process information.
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Differences in the thought processes of speakers of different languages should be accredited to the distinct cultures from which these languages emerge.
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Nevertheless, language is an important factor in the way a culture evolves. Ultimately, although it is our society rather than our language that shapes the way we think, language helps to enforce the way society is.
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Language cannot be said to be responsible for the way a society functions since language itself is a result of that society. A key example of this can be found in the substance of a language, which tends to reflect the values of its speakers and the culture it comes from
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A proponent of linguistic relativity might argue that this is an example of language shaping the way people think by defining age as the primary quality to know about a person.
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However, this assertion fails to recognize the big picture. A more accurate analysis might indicate that society is responsible for this way of thinking, not language.
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However, language still plays an important role in affecting cultures and social norms. Although languages are reflections of cultures, languages do influence how cultures will look in the future.
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We can see this phenomenon in the history of the English language, which dates back to sometime between the 5th and 7th century AD, with Modern English gaining prominence in the late 17th century.
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As we see with English sentence structure, the influence of cultural institutions on a language is often left intact even after that institution has weakened or disappeared.
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Since language is our only proficient method of communication, what we can communicate is limited to the words and phrases available to us. While the society we live in may limit our perspective, the extent and strength of these limitations do not compare to that which language imposes. Cultural change comes more easily to us than linguistic change.
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t took centuries for the Great Vowel Shift to occur while the world experienced revolutions, literary movements, great awakenings and deadly plagues at a much faster pace. This pattern is demonstrated in American culture as the language we speak fails to keep up with the progress we make. Patterns in our vocabulary tend to reflect this.
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A commonly cited phenomenon is the negative and positive associations that English seems to make with “black” and “white.”
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The limits of language may prevent us from progressing as quickly as we may want to, but we do have the ability to overcome some of these linguistic limits.