Linguistic Relativity With Annotated Bibliography Annotated Bibliography

Total Length: 1194 words ( 4 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 8

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Linguistics

Begley, S. (2009). What's in a word? Newsweek/The Daily Beast. Retrieved online: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/07/08/what-s-in-a-word.html

Begley provides a helpful overview of the work of Boroditsky in the field of linguistic relativity. The theory was once lacking empirical grounding, but Boroditsky changed that, to provide scientific proof that language indeed shapes perception and cognition.

Boroditsky, L. (n.d.). Linguistic relativity. Retrieved online: http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~lera/papers/linguistic-relativity.pdf

Boroditsky's (n.d.) "intermediate paper" provides the foundation for linguistic relativity. The author describes how linguistic relativity shapes conceptions of space, spatial relations, time, shapes, substances, and other qualities of the perceptual universe. Language shapes habitual thought, which impacts the way cultures perceive and communicate their realities.

Bowers, J.S. & Pleydell-Pierce, C.W. (2011). Swearing, euphemisms, and linguistic relativity. PLoS ONE 6(7): e22341. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022341

Bowers & Pleydell-Pierce (2011) contribute to the growing body of empirical research on the linguistic relativity hypothesis. The authors found that participants reacted differently, in terms of their autonomic nervous system responses measured by a custom-designed device, to swear words vs. their euphemistic counterparts or neutral triggers. The implication is that words do have a direct impact on the way people think and feel.

Fountain, H. (1999). People see colors with the tongue. The New York Times. March 30, 1999. Retrieved online: http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~felluga/NewYorkTimes.html

Fountain (1999) provides a well-written overview of the Whorf hypothesis and linguistic relativity, and offers examples that highlight core tenets of the theory.
What the source lacks in depth, it makes up for in clarity and accessibility to readers new to the subject.

Kousta, S.T., Vinson, D.P. & Vigliocco, G. (2008). Investigating linguistic relativity through bilingualism: The case of grammatical gender. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 34(4): 843-858.

Kousta, Vinson & Vigliocco (2008) test linguistic relativity theory in an experiment involving bilingual and monolingual speakers. Acknowledging interfering variables such as age of acquisition of each language, the extent to which the two known languages are similar, and fluency levels in each language, the authors revealed core differences between bilingual English-Italian and monolingual English speakers.

Lucy, J.A. (1997). Linguistic relativity. Annual Review of Anthropology 1997(26): 291-213.

Lucy (1997) points out the weaknesses in linguistic relativity theory: mainly by citing in the lack of concrete empirical evidence showing the causal relationship between language and cognition. Although much has been written since Lucy's (1997) assessment, the article does show the importance of critical thinking with regards to the theory. Lucy (1997) also points out the….....

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