Linguistic Relativity

In the domain of motion event encoding, many of the world’s languages fall into one of two types: verb-framed (the path is encoded in the verb) or satellite-framed (the path is encoded outside the verb in a prefix, particle or adverbial while the verb contains information about the manner of movement). A number of studies have investigated the language usage of bilingual speakers or language learners to find evidence of a transfer of the typological pattern of the dominant/native language to the non-dominant/foreign language. These studies have largely failed to show evidence of a straightforward transfer, although more subtle effects on usage have occasionally been observed. In this paper, we report the results of a corpus study comparing two groups of speakers of the urban German ethnolect “Kiezdeutsch”: one with a monolingual German background and one with a bilingual Turkish-German background. We find no significant differences in their preference for path or manner verbs, which...

ABSTRACT OF MONOGRAPH

Relatively Speaking:
The Acquisition of Social Identity among the Mopan Maya

2001, Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics.

Eve Danziger
Department of Anthropology
University of Virginia
http://pages.shanti.virginia.edu/evedanziger/


Aligning classic debates over kinship semantics with the recent renewal of interest in the measurable effects of language variation on thought (Lucy 1992, Gumperz and Levinson 1991), this study takes up the challenge of determining the "psychological reality" of semantic models; it carries out an investigation of children's language which integrates ethnographic and linguistic observations to discriminate between competing semantic models of kinship vocabulary in the Mopan Maya language of Central America.
Fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in southern Belize provide the basis for an understanding of the Mopan kinship domain. According to informants, relationships in this domain are based upon parent-child links, and typical nuclear family referents exist within each named category. Use of the terms of the domain in obligatory greeting is consistently understood as an important instantiation of religious respect (Mopan tzik). A deep reverence for age as the vehicle of knowledge motivates a lexical distinction between "same age group" and "different age group" relationships within the set of those entitled to the respect greeting. In a deeply felt sense, however, the sameness and differentness of age group that is crucial to Mopan kin term semantics is not predicated upon essential factors such as biological generation or absolute chronology. Rather, the distinction turns on collective assessment of the various social and cultural criteria that, in the right combination, allow one person to play a nurturing role with respect to another. Although a feature-based analysis is applicable to the internal semantics of the Mopan domain therefore, the features to be applied are social and local rather than essential or natural. In illustration of this point, the study describes how certain tzik greeting relationships are conventionally established through performative speech acts in situations which allow for a considerable degree of prior negotiation as to outcome.
On the basis of this description, three very different models of kinship semantics are proposed for the Mopan domain. One, a traditional kintype approach uses ethnogenealogical data to make an analysis in terms of combinations of biological primitives. The second, a prototype analysis made in terms of central category members, follows up linguistic and interview evidence which indicates the existence of familiar typical referents within the nuclear family for each term. A third, cryptotype, analysis proposes that the peculiarly Mopan feature of fitness for nurture by virtue of maturity functions in Mopan cognitive organization to define the category as a uniquely Mopan conceptual whole. This analysis proposes that category boundaries in the Mopan domain are well-defined and psychologically salient rather than fuzzy and peripheral.

The study now takes up the challenge of establishing the cognitive status of these three possible analyses. Previous cross-linguistic investigations have indicated that the semantic complexity of family relationship terms conditions the order in which children process them through cross-culturally verified stages of cognitive acquisition (Haviland and Clark 1974, Piaget 1928). Acquisition of Mopan terms is predicted to proceed in three alternative sequences under the three competing semantic models (cf. Greenfield and Childs 1977). Data from one hundred Mopan children aged seven to fourteen years provide results which most strongly support the cryptotype analysis. The kintype analysis is not supported by the data. The prototype analysis is not disconfirmed but is only suggestively supported. A return to the Mopan ethnography and to general ethnology helps us to interpret these cognitive results. The requirements of the social situations to which tzik is relevant are such that mutually exclusive courses of linguistic action have alternative symbolic readings and alternative social consequences. The circumstances therefore do not allow for fuzzy boundaries to the tzik-greeting ("kinship") domain, nor for gradations of membership in tzik-related categories.

The forces which define the Mopan kinship domain in cultural rather than in biological terms are symbolic ones. And within the tzik domain, the forces which emphasize category boundaries rather than the identification of central members are those of social practice. Mopan conceptual categories in the tzik domain are motivated by their relevance to culturally meaningful action in particular contexts, and they therefore reflect neither a disembodied and universal `objective reality' (kintype organization) nor a cross-culturally common and pan-contextual `human-sized experience' (prototype organization).
Between thought and language, the study concludes, lies social action. Combining quantitative with qualitative methodology, the work draws out and examines the vital links between social purpose, lexical categorization, and cognitive organization. In the Mopan kinship case, it is clear that while genealogical or physiological reality may constitute a "fuzzy" continuum, it is contextualized speech itself which functions to create sharply bounded categories of social action. These categories in turn are demonstrated to have psychological reality in the minds of speakers. The study thus addresses the issue of language and thought from a standpoint that unites cognitive with practice interests in linguistic anthropology. It views linguistic and conceptual categories as fully integrated both into the particular context of their use, and also into the larger cultural context that makes it possible to use them at all. This multiplex context is seen to play a role both in shaping linguistic structure, and in bringing into being a culturally particular form of conceptual organization.


References Cited


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How do we find meaning amidst an overwhelming amount of sensory information? Are the processes by which we categorize information independent of our language? Linguistic relativism suggests that our thoughts are shaped by our language. Linguistic universalism does not necessarily contradict this notion. It is possible that, while humans may share some inherent facility that allows us to develop language and higher-level cognition, every language that develops does not necessarily share some basic set of universal concepts. Different languages classify spatial relations by different criteria, picking out distinctive features another language might otherwise ignore. The present study presents native speakers of different languages―Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, English, Spanish, (Persian) Farsi, and Hebrew―with animations portraying an array of different spatial relations. To control for variations in verb specificity, an artificial, constructed language (Klingon), will be used for responses. If relativists are right, participants should come up with significantly different spatial categories (emerging from the verbs they use) between groups.

1. Spanish and English speakers tend to conceptualize time as running from left to right along a mental line. Previous research suggests that this representational strategy arises from the participants' exposure to a left-to-right writing system. However, direct evidence supporting this assertion suffers from several limitations and relies only on the visual modality. This study subjected to a direct test the reading hypothesis using an auditory task. Participants from two groups (Spanish and Hebrew) differing in the directionality of ...

An experiment investigated whether Japanese speakers' categorisation of objects and substances as shape or material is influenced by acquiring English, based on Imai and Gentner (1997). Subjects were presented with an item such as a cork pyramid and asked to choose between two other items that matched it for shape (plastic pyramid) or for material (piece of cork). The hypotheses were that for simple objects the number of shape-based categorisations would increase according to experience of English and that the preference for shape and material-based categorisations of Japanese speakers of English would differ from monolingual speakers of both languages. Subjects were 18 adult Japanese users of English who had lived in English-speaking countries between 6 months and 3 years (short-stay group), and 18 who had lived in English-speaking countries for 3 years or more (long-stay group). Both groups achieved above criterion on an English vocabulary test. Results were: both groups preferred material responses for simple objects and substances but not for complex objects, in line with Japanese monolinguals, but the long-stay group showed more shape preference than the short-stay group and also were less different from Americans. These effects of acquiring a second language on categorisation have implications for conceptual representation and methodology.

O relativismo linguístico, a ideia de que os idiomas que falamos podem tingir ou mesmo determinara nossa percepção da realidade, é talvez a mais sedutora das ideias linguísticas. Nos círculos acadêmicos, e fora deles (entre poetas, filósofos, romancistas e cineastas), circulou e circula a possibilidade de que o mundo seja filtrado de modo incontornável pela língua que dominamos, ou que, nesses termos, nos domina. Este livro é, dessa maneira, uma contribuição fundamental para o debate dentro e fora da universidade. Ao mostrar o histórico da ideia relativista, descrever suas formulações mais influentes, mapear as investigações empíricas que questionaram sua validade e, mais ainda, ao tentar encaixar o princípio relativista, devidamente desmistificado, em teorias mais amplas sobre a linguagem, o autor rescreveu a obra definitiva sobre a questão. (quarta capa de Caetano Galindo) - https://tinyurl.com/wnql35x

The goal of the present study is the analysis of the lexical composition of any language (or language variant) which covers not only the peculiarities of language units functioning, but also the facts of their social and ethnic specificity taking into account the system-forming cultural and national relations between language units and culturally significant concepts.
The inevitable connection of culture and its language has been proven by a number of scholars. Thus, the influence of a person's speech on his thought process is of fundamental importance. V.A. Zvegintsev claims that there is a dependence of language on the general cultural state of a nation. The study of this question has much in common with the problem of the relationship between language and thought.

Despite the need for more study on the theory, linguistic relativity may help towards understanding the inter-relatedness of society, culture, and language by looking at the phenomenon of linguistic relativity as it may have affected New Testament writers. The ideas discussed should provide useful information for further research into the application of modern linguistics to New Testament hermeneutics, systematic theology, and biblical exegesis.  The implications of linguistic relativity theory applied to this genre of literature are of extreme importance in light of resurgence in interest and work in biblical languages and modern linguistics in the last quarter of a century. This discussion circumscribes the salient elements of the Sapir/Whorf hypothesis and its application to New Testament autographs by focusing on: transcription of oral tradition, the influence of languages on the autographs, and the implications of linguistic relativity for exegesis.

Differences between languages have been implicated recently in explanations of the cross-cultural disparities observed in children's mathematical performance on place value tasks (e.g., Miura, Okamaoto, Kim, Chang, Steere & Fayol, 1994). Children's understanding of place value was investigated here with 93 English-speaking children and 50 Japanese-speaking children (aged 6 and 7 years). Cubes denoting units and tens were made available to children for producing representations of multi-digit numerals. It was found that subtle shifts in task instructions produced a marked influence on children's performance. In particular, differences between English and Japanese participants disappeared when the use of tens cubes was demonstrated in practice trials. More generally, the findings indicate that the influence of language on the cognitive representation of number is less direct than has previously been suggested. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.

The article considers the issues related to the semantic, grammatical, stylistic and technical difficulties currently present in machine translation and compares its four main approaches: Rule-based (RBMT), Corpora-based (CBMT), Neural (NMT), and Hybrid (HMT). It also examines some “open systems”, which allow the correction or augmentation of content by the users themselves (“crowdsourced translation”). The authors of the article, native speakers presenting different countries (Russia, Greece, Malaysia, Japan and Serbia), tested the translation quality of the most representative phrases from English, Russian, Greek, Malay and Japanese languages by using different machine translation systems: PROMT (RBMT), Yandex.Translate (HMT) and Google Translate (NMT). The test’s results presented by the authors show low “comprehension level” of semantic, linguistic and pragmatic contexts of translated texts, mistranslations of rare and culture-specific words, unnecessary translation of proper names, as well as a low rate of recognition of idiomatic phrases and metaphors. It is argued that the development of machine translation requires the incorporation of the literal, conceptual, and content-and-contextual forms of processing meaning into text, the expansion of translation metaphor corpora and contextological dictionaries, and the implementation of different types and styles of translation, which take into account gender peculiarities, specific dialects and idiolects of users. The problem of untranslatability (‘linguistic relativity’) of the concepts unique to a particular culture has been revised from the perspective of machine translation. It has also been shown, that the translation of booming Internet slang, where national languages merge with English, is almost impossible without human correction.

In building a constructivist view of language, the inherently experiential
nature of language should not be absolutized but seen rather as depending on the overlap between the first-order and the second-order consensual
domains as the sources of experience.

Although current discussions of linguistic relativity tend to concen- trate on obligatory grammatical categories, the original architects of this school of thought, including Boas, Sapir, and Whorf, all argued strongly for the role of vocabulary in guiding human perception, especially in the culturally charged situations of everyday life. Taking the Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk languages of northwestern California as a case study, this article demonstrates the im- portance of vocabulary in conveying pervasive cultural ideologies, such as those associated with mythology, religion, folklore, or geographical systems of spatial orientation.Although current discussions of linguistic relativity tend to concen- trate on obligatory grammatical categories, the original architects of this school of thought, including Boas, Sapir, and Whorf, all argued strongly for the role of vocabulary in guiding human perception, especially in the culturally charged situations of everyday life. Taking the Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk languages of northwestern California as a case study, this article demonstrates the im- portance of vocabulary in conveying pervasive cultural ideologies, such as those associated with mythology, religion, folklore, or geographical systems of spatial orientation.

"The primary focus of this study is to assess the impact of a spoken language on its speaker’s thoughts, perception and cognitive abilities. It is postulated that language, to a certain extent, can influence a person’s thought and his concept of the world, and that the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is less faulty as it seemed to be. This study may be helpful in determining to what degree, does a spoken language shape its speaker’s cognition. It will also attempt to discuss what other pathways prospective researchers can take when conducting further studies on the said topic.
Keywords: Language, Cognitive Abilities, Concept of the World
"

According to Mikhail Bakhtin, the socio-cultural background of a speaker and listener determines the meaning of discourse, suggesting that language is a performance of the culture the speaker represents. The theory of Linguistic Relativity, realized by Benjamin Whorf and Edward Sapir, has been a dying theory until a recent renaissance, inspired by new directions. Linguistic Relativity states, “The particular language we speak influences the way we think about reality.” The concept is considered important for understanding how cultures perceive the world around them. Language, therefore, not only manifests within culture, but it can also affect cultural values, processes, conceptualization, and thinking. Many studies in the field of linguistics concluded that language does not wholly influence thinking, yet more recent studies have discovered a correlation between the language one speaks and how they perceive the world around them. Furthermore, language acts as a performance of how one views the world, giving acts a verbal statement. Specifically in Social Media, such as Facebook and Twitter, users utilize text and phrasing to carry out the performance of the quotidian. This essay examines how language is used through social media to carry out acts of performance, focusing on heterogeneous texts which have changed how users of social media perceive the expanding world around them. The revolutions of Egypt and Tunisia were primarily executed through technology, due to the ability to circulate heterogeneous texts and act out through words alone. A further look into how social media has accomplished a magnification of language as a performance is needed to progress the study of linguistic relativity in a world where technology manifests as socio-cultural discourse.

Navigating the global business environment successfully requires specific skills that are often underestimated. Cultural awareness is one of the most important and lack of intercultural sensitivity can cause companies severe damage. The purpose of this paper is to call attention to the importance of language and culture in international business negotiations and give a general overview of specialist topics like anthropology, linguistic relativity and applied linguistics studies to a non-specialised audience. Valuable information regarding the most substantial theories in the field will be provided in the first part. The cultural dimensions theory of Hofstede, the model of Lewis and Boroditsky’s theory of the influence of language on thought will also be addressed. Practical hints for negotiations with German partners will be given in the second part.

Kinship classification systems play a critical role in understanding human cognition because of their cross-cultural prevalence and paradigmatic completeness. In place of the historically used componential analysis method, this paper instead utilizes Optimality Theory, which argues that languages share constraints, but apply them differently to choose between linguistic efficiency and accurate communication. To negotiate the rigidity of OT and remember the humanity behind the structure, an extensive analysis of family and social structures among Hausa language speakers was applied to the formal method. The study engages with questions about the extent to which cognitive structures and cultural factors interact in kinship term production and presents evidence for how term use influences thought patterns of Hausa speakers and their conceptions of familial relationships.
By applying cultural practice to theory, the model proposes a cognitive framework, particularly malleable to cultural values, that produces kinship terminologies in the Hausa language. Using a variety of ethnographic texts, language learning resources, and the author’s study of the Hausa language, this paper analyzes sets of kinship terms contextually, applying the linguistic and cultural data to Optimality Theory. The model proposed claims that speakers are equipped with a cognitive structure that creates a need for efficient communication and accuracy, resulting in linguistic variation in kinship terminology production when speakers must negotiate with the above constraints. Therefore, Hausa language speakers rank their most valued terminological distinctions based on cognitive constraints and cultural influences in order to produce the kinship terms found in the lexicon.

Keywords: kinship, language and cognition, culture

הקדמה לספר שפה, מחשבה, מציאות מאת בנג'מין לי וורף. מגב הספר:
בנג'מין לי וורף (1897 - 1941) נחשב לאחד מגדולי החלוצים האמריקאים בתחומי הפילוסופיה של הלשון, הבלשנות והאנתרופולוגיה של התרבות. וורף, בן חורג של המסורת המדעית ודמות שנויה במחלוקת עד היום, חקר באופן עצמאי מגוון תופעות לשוניות ותרבותיות, והתמקד בשאלת הקשר בין שפה לחשיבה: האם השפה משפיעה על הרגלי החשיבה שלנו? האם דוברי שפות שונות עשויים להגיע למסקנות שונות בשיפוט המציאות שלהם? האם האופן שבו אנו מבינים את העולם נובע מן הידע הלשוני שלנו? האם אנחנו "כלואים" בתוך עולם המושגים שלנו, או שמא נוכל לפרוץ ביום מן הימים את גבולות שפתנו ועולמנו?

מאמריו של וורף, הפונים לקהל מקצועי ולא־מקצועי כאחד, מציעים ניתוח מעמיק של השפה האנושית, ומשתרעים על פני קשת רחבה של נושאים: גילויי המחקר הבלשני המודרני, ההירוגליפים של האצטקים ושל המאיה, הקשרים שבין חושים למטאפורות, תמונת הזמן והמרחב של בני שבט ההופי, ההשפעה של השפה על שיפוטי מציאות ועוד. משתקפת בהם אמונתו העזה של וורף כי בחקירתן של שפות ותרבויות אחרות טמונה היכולת לגלות ולפתח אפיקים חדשים לחשיבה האנושית.

In this article, I offer an analysis of Peruvian Aymara speech directed toward sheep and alpacas, children, and marbles (specifically, the use of “animal-oriented interjections”). The use of these forms positions addressees as reduced (quasi) agents and thereby mediates Aymara ideologies about the scaled or graduated character of those enminded beings that regularly act as addressees. Ultimately, the analysis reveals an Aymara human–nonhuman frontier that requires attention to both the interactional encounters sustained across perceived ontological divides (divides understood to turn on species and ethnodevelopmental difference, etc.) and the (scaled) character of the ideologies that renders these divides “ontological.”[humans, animals, childhood, materiality, semiotics, mind, Andes]

This paper is concerned with the relation of thought and language, especially with the inner workings of human conceptual thought. The questions it set out to answer were whether humans think in language and how language might limit human thinking. What the current research has shown, is that both of these questions can be negated, as they do not stand up to scrutiny.

Over the last two decades, questions of languages’ cultural specificity, diversity, and of linguistic universalism versus relativism, have increasingly been applied to the study of metaphor in analyses that take data from a wide range of languages into account. After reviewing existing research on cross-cultural metaphor variation, this paper focuses on the phenomenon of ‘false-friend metaphors,’ i.e., seemingly identical mappings which reveal hidden culture-specific differences when used in intercultural communication and in contrastive analysis. Examples of this phenomenon are drawn 1) from interpretations tasks concerning the metaphor THE STATE IS A (HUMAN) BODY, and 2) from cross-cultural research on the concept of SOCIAL FACE. In conclusion, a preliminary categorization of types of metaphor-induced intercultural misunderstanding is proposed

The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis holds that language plays a powerful role in shaping human consciousness, affecting everything from private thought and perception to larger patterns of behavior in society—ultimately allowing members of any given speech community to arrive at a shared sense of social reality. This article starts with a brief consideration of the philosophical insights that inspired the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis or the “principle of linguistic relativity,” as it is more often known today. Toward the end of the article current empirical research is reviewed. This explores everything from human universals to the cross-cultural differences in the construction of gender, color, space, and other creative practices associated with language, such as storytelling, poetry, or song.

Аннотация: Статья посвящена анализу современных тенденций в изучении проблемы влияния естественного языка на когнитивные процессы, а также формулировке новой программы междисциплинарных исследований по теме «язык и познание». Сначала вкратце рассматривается история изучения «гипотезы лингвистической относительности» («гипотезы Сепира-Уорфа»), притом де-лается акцент на неорелятивистском направлении исследований и на полученных в 1990-2010-е гг. результатах. Затем выявляются слабые места в неорелятивистском проекте и вводятся базовые положения пострелятивизма - новой теоретической модели, представляющей собой попытку реконтекстуализации главных идей Б. Уорфа с учетом современных тенденций в лингвистике (неоструктурализм) и когнитологии (посткогнитивизм). Вторая половина статьи посвящена формулированию исследовательской программы по теме «язык и познание». Рассматриваются разные уровни когнитивности (доконцептуальный опыт, перцепция, мышление, философское творчество) и их связь со структурой естественного языка. С опорой на последние открытия в этих сферах намечаются наиболее перспективные с точки зрения автора исследовательские проблемы.

Summary: This article analyses contemporary trends in the study of how natural language influences cognitive processes, and formulates a new program of interdisciplinary research in the field of language and cognition. The author first briefly examines the history of "the linguistic relativity hypothesis" ("the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis"), focusing on the neorelativist research program and results achieved in the period from 1990 to 2010. Next, the weak points in the neorelativist project are highlighted and the author introduces the fundamental tenets of postrelativism, a new theoretical model that attempts to recontextual-ize the main ideas of Benjamin Whorf while taking account of contemporary tendencies in linguistics (neo-structuralism) and cognitive science (postcognitivism). The second half of the article formulates a research program for the field of language and cognition. Different levels of cognition are considered (pre-conceptual experience, perception, thought, philosophical activity) and their connection with the structure of natural language examined. Relying on the latest discoveries in these fields, the author outlines what he considers to be the most productive research problems.

В книге рассматривается вопрос о воздействии структуры языка на познавательные способности его носителей, или проблема лингвистической относительности. В первом разделе представлен подробный анализ развития релятивистских идей с конца XVIII в. по 1990-е гг. Во втором разделе рассматриваются компаративные исследования 1990–2010-х гг., посвященные пространственной семантике, концептуализации времени, цветообозначениям и другим эмпирическим и теоретическим проблемам, связанным с тем, что можно охарактеризовать как неорелятивистское направление в психолингвистике и когнитивной антропологии. В третьем разделе представлена новая модель взаимосвязи структуры языка и когнитивных процессов, названная автором пострелятивизмом; также намечена программа будущих пострелятивистских исследований. На обширном материале (около 250 языков и несколько сотен эмпирических исследований) демонстрируется, что язык в режиме реального времени вовлечен в работу многих познавательных механизмов, и это отражается на характере когнитивного стиля его носителей.

The book deals with the problem of influence of natural language structure on cognitive processes of its native speakers - the problem of "linguistic relativity". The first part contains detailed analysis of the development of relativistic ideas from XVIII century to the 1990-s. The second part deals with comparative studies of 1990-2010-s that consider spatial semantics, conceptualization of time, color-terms and other theoretical and empirical problems within "neo-relativist" framework of psycholinguistics and cognitive anthropology. The third part is dedicated to the new model of interaction between the structure of language and cognitive operations; this model was named "post-relativism" by the author. Also there is detailed program for the future post-relativist investigations. The book represents the idea (grounded in the analysis of massive empirical data - 250 languages and more than several hundreds empirical researches) that natural language is integrated in the work of many cognitive processes, and this fact is reflected in the cognitive style of its native speakers.

Монографію присвячено аналізові проблеми співвідношення мислення і мови в аспекті теорії лінгвістичної відносності – міждисциплінарного напряму наукових досліджень, який на початку XXI ст. перетворився на масштабний когнітивно-антропологічний проект, здійснюваний у межах сучасної когнітивної лінгвістики. На матеріалі філософських та релігійно-філософських, а також почасти й наукових текстів, використовуючи дані слов’янських, германських і низки давніх мов, авторка простежує, у який саме спосіб особливості семантики тієї чи іншої мови відбиваються в осмисленні основоположних філософських понять і впливають на розвиток відповідних філософських і наукових концепцій.
Окреме місце посідає висвітлення питання про переклад філософських термінів, розташоване авторкою у когнітивно-релятивістській площині, що виявляє проблематичність їх повного відтворення іншими мовами і виступає ще одним свідченням на користь впливу мови на філософський світогляд. Пропонується герменевтична модель перекладу філософських термінів, побудована за принципами лінгвокогнітивного підходу, що надає можливість відтворення філософської термінології з урахуванням її конкретно-мовної специфіки.
Для філологів-фахівців із загального мовознавства, когнітивної лінгвістики, перекладознавства, дослідників мови філософії й мови науки, філософів, культурологів, усіх, хто цікавиться функціонуванням мови як засобу відображення й формування мислення й інструменту пізнання дійсності.

Boroday S. Y. - Language and thought: limits of linguistic relativity (course of studies) [In Russian]

Курс лекций посвящен введению в проблематику лингвистической относительности. Акцент сделан на экспериментальных исследованиях конца XX – начала XXI вв. В то же время подробно рассматривается переформулировка тезиса о лингвистической относительности с учетом современных дефиниций «языка» и «мышления». Отдельное внимание уделяется истории вопроса. В программу включены наиболее важные исследования по проблеме языкового релятивизма, а также целая группа локальных исследований. Курс состоит из 6 частей. Первая часть посвящена истории вопроса и переформулировке основного тезиса. В следующих пяти частях рассматриваются определенные области мышления и перцепции, подвергающиеся языковому влиянию: пространство, время, движение, цвет, гендер, число и др. В заключительной части также указываются исследовательские перспективы, связанные с нетривиальными грамматическими категориями и своеобразием картины мира носителей индоевропейских языков. Каждая тема снабжена подробным списком литературы. Курс представляется особенно актуальным в свете отсутствия основательной рефлексии над западными исследованиями в русскоязычной литературе.

[RESUMEN]
El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar las dificultades de los estudiantes vietnamitas en el uso del modo subjuntivo español, poniendo especial énfasis en las principales diferencias que existen entre la lengua, la cultura vietnamita y la española. Está especialmente dirigido a todos los estudiantes vietnamitas que estudian el español, ya que les permitirá entender mejor las razones por las que resulta difícil el aprendizaje de este modo gramatical y reflexionar sobre lo que es comunicar en otro idioma.
[ABSTRACT]
The purpose of this research is analyzing the difficulties of the Spanish subjunctive facing the Vietnamese students, emphasizing the main differences between language and culture in Vietnamese and Spanish. This study is specifically aimed at helping Vietnamese students who Study Spanish understand the difficulties they face in learning the Spanish subjunctive and reflect on the meaning of communication.

"Бородай С.Ю. Современное понимание проблемы лингвистической относительности: работы по пространственной концептуализации // Вопросы языкознания 2013 (4), с. 17-54

Article deals with a problem of linguistic relativity in the context of modern research on spatial conceptualization. Emphasis was placed on the experimental research. We analyze works by S. Levinsons, J. Haviland, P. Brown, G. Bennardo, J. Wassmann and others. The main problem is an infl uence of frames of reference used in language on cognitive abilities of speakers. It appears that language is the main factor in the determination of some cognitive preferences, but it never occurs in isolation, and it can’t be imagined beyond the sociocultural context. Despite the significant success in verification of linguistic relativity hypothesis, we need time for developing a holistic theory of neo-relativism"

In The Instruction of Imagination, Daniel Dor offers a new perspective on the essence
of human language. This enormous achievement of our species is best characterized as a communication technology - not unlike the social media on the Net today - that was collectively invented by ancient humans for a very particular communicative function: the instruction of imagination.
While all other systems of communication in the biological world target the interlocutors’ senses, language allows speakers to systematically instruct their interlocutors in the process of imagining the intended meaning, instead of directly experiencing it. This revolutionary function changed human life forever, and in this book it operates as a unifying concept around which a new general theory of language gradually emerges. Dor identifies a set of fundamental problems in the linguistic sciences: the nature of words; the complexities of syntax; the interface between semantics and pragmatics; the causal relationship between language and thought; language processing; the dialectics of universality and variability; the intricacies
of language and power; knowledge of language and its acquisition; the fragility of
linguistic communication; and the origins and evolution of language. Dor then shows
how the theory provides fresh answers to these problems, resolves persistent difficulties in existing accounts, enhances the significance of empirical and theoretical achievements in the field, and identifies new directions for empirical research. The theory thus opens a new path toward the unification of the linguistic sciences - on both sides of the cognitive-social divide.