The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis postulates that the architecture and morphology of an individual's native language determine one’s perception of the world (Sapir, 1929; Whorf, 1956). This idea stems from the research conducted by anthropologist Edward Sapir and his disciple Benjamin Lee Whorf during the early twentieth century. Sapir and Whorf were intrigued by the nexus between language, culture, and cognition, contending that language is a basic constituent of human thinking and experience, rather than just a medium for communication (Sapir, 1929; Whorf, 1956). They maintained that every language comprises an exclusive collection of classifications, contrasts, and concepts, which can shape our cognition and behavior toward the surrounding environment (Sapir, 1929; Whorf, 1956). However, modern research has reached a consensus on the validity of the theory, determining that the language one speaks has no determinate bearing upon their thoughts; however, researchers have admitted that one’s native language has a variable amount of influence upon cognitive processes and perception (Lucy, 1992; Levinson, 1996).
Modern research in psycholinguistics has attributed learned language as an influencing factor of thought and has morphed the concept of linguistic determinism into one of linguistic relativity, forming the empirically accepted Weak Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Wang, 2017). Although researchers have determined that language is an influencing factor in perception, the magnitude of such influence is still widely disputed. In her 2001 study, Boroditsky explored the implication of the weak Whorfian hypothesis, comparing the English language to Mandarin Chinese and noting how speakers of each language conceptualize an equally abstruse concept: time.
Time is generally connoted as linear and one-dimensional, allowing for many languages to utilize spatial terms such as ahead of or next to when describing the placement of something rudimentary, such as an object at a specific instant in time (Traugott, 1978). In many languages however, spatial terms are often used to describe time within itself, for example, in English, when one is late to an event, which they are looking forward to, they are falling behind schedule (Boroditsky, 2001; Lehrer, 1990).
In English, language referring to time falls on a figuratively horizontal axis, meaning that English speakers tend to use spatial terms that suggest horizontal movement when describing the temporal sense e.g. forward, ahead, behind, before, back …etc. These terms can be referred to as “front/back” terms (Boroditsky, 2001). Similarly, Mandarin also has front/back spatial metaphors. The morphemes qián and hóu, meaning front and back, respectively, are also used interchangeably by Mandarin speakers to describe both the spatial and temporal sense. However, unlike English, Mandarin has two other spatial morphemes: sháng (up) & xiá (down) which are used to describe the relation to time (Boroditsky, 2001; Scott, 1989). The English language, while using temporal morphemes connoting the vertical direction such as in the phrase “I have a meeting coming up,” is eclipsed by Mandarin, which uses up/down morphemes in comparable frequency to the front/back spatial metaphors qián and hóu (Scott, 1989; Boroditsky, 2001).
To empirically study if language influenced how speakers conceptualized time, Boroditsky posed two questions: “(1) Does using spatial language to talk about time have short-term implications for online processing? and (2) Does using spatial language to talk about time have long-term implications?” (Boroditsky, 2001). Boroditsky's 2000 study revealed that people can apply relational information obtained from spatial cues to understand time. For instance, being primed to think from a specific spatial perspective influenced how individuals interpreted a subsequent question pertaining to time (Boroditsky, 2000). Interestingly, spatial relational information was just as effective as temporal information in answering questions about time, providing a 129-ms benefit compared to a 130-ms benefit for temporal primes. These results suggest that spatiotemporal metaphors may have implications for conceptual processing. Boroditsky suggests that this mechanism for metaphoric structuring is the same as that used in analogical inference, where semantic connections made between space and time allow spatial metaphors to be substituted in temporal context (Boroditsky, 2001; Gentner & Wolff, 1997; Au, 1983). Frequently used mappings in language can become ingrained mental habits, leading individuals to think in certain ways even when not consciously processing spatial or temporal metaphors. For instance, Boroditsky observes that English speakers often utilize horizontal metaphors to discuss time, such as "looking back on the past" or "looking forward to the future." Over time, this habitual usage of horizontal metaphors may cause English speakers to conceive of time in a horizontal manner, even when processing temporal terms like "earlier" and "later" without any explicit spatial connotations. Similarly, the frequent use of vertical metaphors like sháng and xiá in Mandarin may lead speakers to mentally represent time vertically.
Boroditsky’s study employed a model in which participants were exposed to spatial prime questions followed by temporal target questions (Boroditsky, 2001). The study drew its sample from students at a United States University. 26 participants were native speakers of English, and 20 had Mandarin as their first and only language up to an average age of 6 years old. The spatial primes were presented in either the horizontal or vertical context and consisted of scenarios that were accompanied by descriptive sentences. The temporal targets consisted of statements involving either before/after or earlier/later relationships. The experimental design featured a crossed within-subject design, with the prime type and target type as the independent variables, and native language as the only between-subjects variable. Each participant completed a set of practice questions followed by 64 experimental trials. In each experimental trial, participants were presented with two spatial prime questions in either the horizontal or vertical orientation, followed by one temporal target question. The order of the prime questions was predetermined, with the first being false and the second being true, and the target question was also true. The experimental design was constructed to prevent participants from deducing the underlying trial structure, as filler trials were randomly administered throughout the experiment. Each target question was presented twice, once after each type of prime, to enable a comprehensive analysis of participant responses.
After experiments concluded, Boroditsky found the impact of spatial primes on spatiotemporal processing varied between English and Mandarin speakers (Boroditsky, 2001). Specifically, both groups exhibited faster response times for spatiotemporal before/after questions following horizontal primes, relative to vertical primes. These findings corroborate prior research, which suggests that spatial knowledge can facilitate the online processing of spatiotemporal metaphors (Boroditsky, 2000). However, differences between the two groups emerged when answering purely temporal earlier/later questions. English speakers responded more quickly to these questions after horizontal primes than vertical primes, reflecting the prevalence of horizontal spatial metaphors in English discourse about time. In contrast, Mandarin speakers exhibited a contrasting pattern, with faster response times for purely temporal earlier/later questions following vertical primes compared to horizontal primes, aligning with the prevalence of vertical metaphors when describing the time in Mandarin.
Boroditsky’s study comparing English and Mandarin Chinese speakers' conceptualization of time reveals that the spatial metaphors frequently used in language may have implications for conceptual processing. Spatial and temporal information can be applied interchangeably in answering questions about time. The results suggest that spatiotemporal metaphors may become encoded mental habits, leading individuals to think in certain ways even when not consciously processing spatial or temporal metaphors. While experts have reached a consensus on the lack of determinate bearing that language has on thoughts, it can be seen that one’s native language has a variable amount of influence on an individual’s thoughts and perceptions.
References
Modern research in psycholinguistics has attributed learned language as an influencing factor of thought and has morphed the concept of linguistic determinism into one of linguistic relativity, forming the empirically accepted Weak Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Wang, 2017). Although researchers have determined that language is an influencing factor in perception, the magnitude of such influence is still widely disputed. In her 2001 study, Boroditsky explored the implication of the weak Whorfian hypothesis, comparing the English language to Mandarin Chinese and noting how speakers of each language conceptualize an equally abstruse concept: time.
Time is generally connoted as linear and one-dimensional, allowing for many languages to utilize spatial terms such as ahead of or next to when describing the placement of something rudimentary, such as an object at a specific instant in time (Traugott, 1978). In many languages however, spatial terms are often used to describe time within itself, for example, in English, when one is late to an event, which they are looking forward to, they are falling behind schedule (Boroditsky, 2001; Lehrer, 1990).
In English, language referring to time falls on a figuratively horizontal axis, meaning that English speakers tend to use spatial terms that suggest horizontal movement when describing the temporal sense e.g. forward, ahead, behind, before, back …etc. These terms can be referred to as “front/back” terms (Boroditsky, 2001). Similarly, Mandarin also has front/back spatial metaphors. The morphemes qián and hóu, meaning front and back, respectively, are also used interchangeably by Mandarin speakers to describe both the spatial and temporal sense. However, unlike English, Mandarin has two other spatial morphemes: sháng (up) & xiá (down) which are used to describe the relation to time (Boroditsky, 2001; Scott, 1989). The English language, while using temporal morphemes connoting the vertical direction such as in the phrase “I have a meeting coming up,” is eclipsed by Mandarin, which uses up/down morphemes in comparable frequency to the front/back spatial metaphors qián and hóu (Scott, 1989; Boroditsky, 2001).
To empirically study if language influenced how speakers conceptualized time, Boroditsky posed two questions: “(1) Does using spatial language to talk about time have short-term implications for online processing? and (2) Does using spatial language to talk about time have long-term implications?” (Boroditsky, 2001). Boroditsky's 2000 study revealed that people can apply relational information obtained from spatial cues to understand time. For instance, being primed to think from a specific spatial perspective influenced how individuals interpreted a subsequent question pertaining to time (Boroditsky, 2000). Interestingly, spatial relational information was just as effective as temporal information in answering questions about time, providing a 129-ms benefit compared to a 130-ms benefit for temporal primes. These results suggest that spatiotemporal metaphors may have implications for conceptual processing. Boroditsky suggests that this mechanism for metaphoric structuring is the same as that used in analogical inference, where semantic connections made between space and time allow spatial metaphors to be substituted in temporal context (Boroditsky, 2001; Gentner & Wolff, 1997; Au, 1983). Frequently used mappings in language can become ingrained mental habits, leading individuals to think in certain ways even when not consciously processing spatial or temporal metaphors. For instance, Boroditsky observes that English speakers often utilize horizontal metaphors to discuss time, such as "looking back on the past" or "looking forward to the future." Over time, this habitual usage of horizontal metaphors may cause English speakers to conceive of time in a horizontal manner, even when processing temporal terms like "earlier" and "later" without any explicit spatial connotations. Similarly, the frequent use of vertical metaphors like sháng and xiá in Mandarin may lead speakers to mentally represent time vertically.
Boroditsky’s study employed a model in which participants were exposed to spatial prime questions followed by temporal target questions (Boroditsky, 2001). The study drew its sample from students at a United States University. 26 participants were native speakers of English, and 20 had Mandarin as their first and only language up to an average age of 6 years old. The spatial primes were presented in either the horizontal or vertical context and consisted of scenarios that were accompanied by descriptive sentences. The temporal targets consisted of statements involving either before/after or earlier/later relationships. The experimental design featured a crossed within-subject design, with the prime type and target type as the independent variables, and native language as the only between-subjects variable. Each participant completed a set of practice questions followed by 64 experimental trials. In each experimental trial, participants were presented with two spatial prime questions in either the horizontal or vertical orientation, followed by one temporal target question. The order of the prime questions was predetermined, with the first being false and the second being true, and the target question was also true. The experimental design was constructed to prevent participants from deducing the underlying trial structure, as filler trials were randomly administered throughout the experiment. Each target question was presented twice, once after each type of prime, to enable a comprehensive analysis of participant responses.
After experiments concluded, Boroditsky found the impact of spatial primes on spatiotemporal processing varied between English and Mandarin speakers (Boroditsky, 2001). Specifically, both groups exhibited faster response times for spatiotemporal before/after questions following horizontal primes, relative to vertical primes. These findings corroborate prior research, which suggests that spatial knowledge can facilitate the online processing of spatiotemporal metaphors (Boroditsky, 2000). However, differences between the two groups emerged when answering purely temporal earlier/later questions. English speakers responded more quickly to these questions after horizontal primes than vertical primes, reflecting the prevalence of horizontal spatial metaphors in English discourse about time. In contrast, Mandarin speakers exhibited a contrasting pattern, with faster response times for purely temporal earlier/later questions following vertical primes compared to horizontal primes, aligning with the prevalence of vertical metaphors when describing the time in Mandarin.
Boroditsky’s study comparing English and Mandarin Chinese speakers' conceptualization of time reveals that the spatial metaphors frequently used in language may have implications for conceptual processing. Spatial and temporal information can be applied interchangeably in answering questions about time. The results suggest that spatiotemporal metaphors may become encoded mental habits, leading individuals to think in certain ways even when not consciously processing spatial or temporal metaphors. While experts have reached a consensus on the lack of determinate bearing that language has on thoughts, it can be seen that one’s native language has a variable amount of influence on an individual’s thoughts and perceptions.
References
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- Boroditsky, L. (2000). Metaphoric structuring: Understanding time through spatial metaphors. Cognition, 75(1), 1-28.
- Boroditsky L. (2001). Does language shape thought? Mandarin and English speakers' conceptions of time. Cognitive psychology, 43(1), 1–22.
- Gentner, D., Bowdle, B., & Wolff, P. (2001). Metaphor is like analogy. In D. Gentner, K. J.
- Holyoak, & B. Kokinov (Eds.), The analogical mind: Theory and phenomena. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Lehrer, A. (1990). Polysemy, conventionality, and the structure of the lexicon. Cognitive Linguistics, 1, 207–246.
- Lucy, J. (1992). Grammatical categories and cognition: A case study of the linguistic relativity hypothesis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
- Lucy, J., & Shweder, R. (1979). Whorf and his critics: Linguistic and nonlinguistic influences on color memory. American Anthropologist, 81, 581–618. Sapir, E. (1929). The status of linguistics as a science. Language, 5(4), 207-214.
- Scott, A. (1989). The vertical dimension and time in Mandarin. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 9, 295–314.
- Traugott, E. C. (1978). On the expression of spatio-temporal relations in language. In J. H.
- Greenberg (Ed.), Universals of human language: Vol. 3. Word structure (pp. 369-400). Stanford University Press.
- Whorf, B. L. (1956). Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. MIT Press.
- Xiaoli Wang. A critical review on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development, Volume 4, Issue 8, 2017, Pages 21-22.
