Language And Thought: Independent, Complementary Or Inseperable?

Language and Thought:
Independent, Complementary or Inseperable?
By V. P. Barvinko
In what way do language and thought correlate? Are they unconnected, loosely influenced by each other, or are they rigidly interdependent? Could learning a new language radically impact your perception and understanding of the world?
Traditionally, and by many still, a clear distinction is made between language and thought: Thought is the abstract processing of information within our minds, and language is the medium by which we are able to transfer this information. Benjamin Lee Whorf, however, argued that without language, thought cannot exist at all, and thus that such distinction is misleading. Expanding on this idea, he formulated “The Whorfian Hypothesis”.
The principle of linguistic determinism conveys similar implications and holds that language and its structures limit and determine human knowledge or thought, as well as thought processes such as interpreting mermories and sorting them into categories. In the linguistic circle, it has become popular to differentiate between the “strong” and “weak” Worfian Hypothesis. The strong hypothesis implies that thought cannot exist without language at all, while the weak hypothesis suggests that thought can exist without language, but that it is prone to being influenced by it.
The discussion about in what way thought is influenced by language comes down to what, if any, version of the hypothesis is right. A lot of research dismisses the strong hypothesis.
In one particular study, speakers of Tseltal Mayan, living in Mexico, were asked to locate things in the environment and give directions. In the Tseltal Mayan language, there are no words for right or left; instead, they make use of cardinal directions (North, West, etc.). After the speakers first completed the experiment using these absolute directions, the researchers explained how left and right works (but did not give the words for it). The Tseltal were able to use left/right reasoning, moreover, some of the speakers performed better with this new mechanism (Levinson,
When the speakers were asked to describe an event verbally, it was found that the speakers attributed their attention differently; however, when they were charged with the task of memorising the event for a later task, they acted identically with regard to how they allocated their attention. This research suggests that the subjects presumably relied on similar cognitive processes that were not influenced by language (Papafragou, Hulbert & Trueswell,