Language and thought: Which side are you on, anyway

The debate over language and thought has traditionally been framed by two opposing stances: „universalist‟ and „relativist‟. The universalist view holds that language is shaped by universals of human cognition; on this view, languages make semantic distinctions drawn from a limited palette of universally available options – and when languages do differ semantically, those linguistic differences do not affect cognition. The relativist view in contrast, often attributed to Whorf (1956), holds that semantic distinctions are determined primarily by largely arbitrary linguistic convention, so that languages are free to vary widely – and that such linguistic differences do affect cognition. Thus, on the relativist view, rather than universals of thought shaping language, it is language that shapes thought, in a manner that varies with little constraint across languages.