Complete the account of the two hypotheses.
The strong claim, that language determines what can be thought, is called linguistic ______ and has been effectively abandoned. The weak claim, that habitual patterns influence attention and memory, is called linguistic ______. Evidence for the weak version comes from the ordering of basic ______ terms and from languages that use ______ directions instead of left and right.
Word bank: determinism · relativity · colour · absolute · grammatical · gender
Hints
- The first pair is the strong/weak split.
- The last blank names the system Guugu Yimithirr uses.
Show the answer
The strong claim, that language determines what can be thought, is called linguistic determinism and has been effectively abandoned. The weak claim, that habitual patterns influence attention and memory, is called linguistic relativity. Evidence for the weak version comes from the ordering of basic colour terms and from languages that use absolute directions instead of left and right.
Keeping the two names apart is most of the work in this area. Almost every popular treatment attributes evidence for the weak version to the strong one, which is how a modest and interesting finding about attention becomes the claim that speakers of different languages live in different worlds.
Practise Origins, Evolution and Linguistic Relativity
The app has 3 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Languages I is free to start.
More questions on Origins, Evolution and Linguistic Relativity
- The Russian-blues advantage disappears when speakers perform a verbal task at the same time. Why does that…
- Sort each claim by whether it belongs to linguistic DETERMINISM or the weaker RELATIVITY.
- FOXP2 is best described as the gene for language.
- The human descended larynx increases choking hazards yet expands phonetic range. Why does this morphological…
- What is the maximum number of basic colour terms Berlin and Kay found in any language?
- Which are legitimate reasons to be cautious about evidence for the origin of language?
- Match each domain to the relativity finding associated with it.
- Arrange these positions on language origins from the most gradualist to the most saltationist.
- The claim that a language has dozens of words for snow, even if true, would not by itself show anything about…