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The principle of linguistic relativity holds that the structure of a language affects the ways in which its respective speakers conceptualize their world, i.e. their world view, or otherwise influences their cognitive processes. Popularly known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, the principle is often defined to include two versions. The ''strong'' version says that language determines thought, and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories, whereas the ''weak'' version says only that linguistic categories and usage influence thought and certain kinds of non-linguistic behavior. The term "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis" is considered a misnomer by linguists for several reasons: because Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf never co-authored anything, and never stated their ideas in terms of a hypothesis. The distinction between a weak and a strong version of this hypothesis is also a later invention; Sapir and Whorf never set up such a dichotomy, although often in their writings their views of this relativity principle are phrased in stronger or weaker terms.〔Hill & Mannheim (1992)〕 The idea was first clearly expressed by 19th-century thinkers, such as Wilhelm von Humboldt, who saw language as the expression of the spirit of a nation. Members of the early 20th-century school of American anthropology headed by Franz Boas and Edward Sapir also embraced forms of the idea to one extent or another, but Sapir in particular wrote more often against than in favor of anything like linguistic determinism. Sapir's student, Benjamin Lee Whorf, came to be seen as the primary proponent as a result of his published observations of how he perceived linguistic differences to have consequences in human cognition and behavior. Harry Hoijer, one of Sapir's students, introduced the term "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis",〔"The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis", in Hoijer 1954:92–105〕 even though the two scholars never formally advanced any such hypothesis.〔This usage is now generally seen as a misnomer. As Jane Hill and Bruce Mannheim write: Yet, just as the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire the "Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis" is neither consistent with the writings of Sapir and Whorf, nor a hypothesis (Hill & Mannheim 1992, p386)〕 A strong version of relativist theory was developed from the late 1920s by the German linguist Leo Weisgerber. Whorf's principle of linguistic relativity was reformulated as a testable hypothesis by Roger Brown and Eric Lenneberg who conducted experiments designed to find out whether color perception varies between speakers of languages that classified colors differently. As the study of the universal nature of human language and cognition came into focus in the 1960s the idea of linguistic relativity fell out of favor among linguists. A 1969 study by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay demonstrated the existence of universal semantic constraints in the field of color terminology which were widely seen to discredit the existence of linguistic relativity in this domain, although this conclusion has been disputed by relativist researchers. From the late 1980s a new school of linguistic relativity scholars have examined the effects of differences in linguistic categorization on cognition, finding broad support for non-deterministic versions of the hypothesis in experimental contexts.〔Koerner, E.F.K."Towards a full pedigree of the Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis:from Locke to Lucy" Chapter in "〕 Some effects of linguistic relativity have been shown in several semantic domains, although they are generally weak. Currently, a balanced view of linguistic relativity is espoused by most linguists holding that language influences certain kinds of cognitive processes in non-trivial ways, but that other processes are better seen as arising from connectionist factors. Research is focused on exploring the ways and extent to which language influences thought.〔 The principle of linguistic relativity and the relation between language and thought has also received attention in varying academic fields from philosophy to psychology and anthropology, and it has also inspired and colored works of fiction and the invention of constructed languages. == Definitional issues and debates == The concept of linguistic relativity holds that cognitive processes, such as thought and experience, may be influenced by the categories and patterns of the language a person speaks. Empirical research into the question has been associated mainly with the names of Benjamin Lee Whorf, who wrote on the topic in the 1930s, and his mentor Edward Sapir, who did not, himself, write extensively on the topic. Whorf's writings became the focus of empirical studies in psychology in the mid 20th century, and this strand of research often referred to the question as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, or sometimes the Whorfian hypothesis. This usage has been criticized as a misnomer, since Sapir and Whorf did not in fact formulate a hypothesis for empirical research, and because it is unclear to what extent Sapir actually subscribed to the idea of language influencing thought. Currently, researchers prefer to use Whorf's own terminology, by referring to the principle of linguistic relativity. This formulation implicitly acknowledges that Sapir and Whorf were not the first or only scholars to have theorized about relations between language and thought and that other strands of thinking about the issue also exist. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Linguistic relativity」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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