Language,Thought and Cognition:Rethinking Whorf Hypothesis

Whorf Hypothesis holds that language influences and even determines thought. People using different languages have different patterns of thought. In contrast, hypothesis believes that although language and thought are closely related they are not of the same origin and have separate routes of development. In language acquisition, cognition is prior to language and thought determines language while in language use, there is thought that needn' t be expressed by language. This paper reconsiders Whorf Hypothesis on the basis of a comparison between the above contradictory theories.