Relationship between Language,Culture and Thought

It has long been realized that language is of great importance to culture and that the impact of culture upon a given language is indispensible.One claim about the relationship between language and culture is that the structure of a particular language influences the habitual thought of its speakers.Today,the claim is referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis,which is composed of two versions.The strong version,also known as linguistic determinism,states that language patterns determine speaker’s thinking.The weak version,also known as linguistic relativity,implies that language do really influence thought but doesn’t determine it completely.This paper tries to give a brief introduction to the hypothesis,illustrate some experiments used to test the theory and state some arguments against the strong version of the hypothesis.Although the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis doesn’t offer the most reasonable explanation of the nature of the relationship between language,culture and thought,it is still influential in the development of linguistic science.