A cross‐cultural study of English and Setswana speakers on a colour triads task: A test of the Sapir—Whorf hypothesis

Abstract

We report a cross‐cultural study of speakers of Setswana and of English carried out as a test of the linguistic relativity hypothesis (the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis). These languages differ in their number of ‘basic’ colour terms—English has eleven and Setswana has five—and in the position of some colour category boundaries. Speakers of the two languages did a ‘triads’ task in which they chose which of three colours was least like the other two. There were two types of triad: ‘controls’, for which any linguistic influences should lead to the same choices, and ‘experimental’, for which any linguistic influences should lead to different choices by the two groups. Thus the universalist position predicts that the choices of the two samples should be essentially the same for all triads, whereas the relativist position predicts that choice should be the same for the control triads, but differ for the experimental triads. The most striking feature of the results was that the choices made by the two samples were very similar for both kinds of triads, thus supporting universalism. But, there were also small but reliable differences associated with the linguistic differences, thus supporting Whorfianism. Overall, it appears that there is a strong universal influence on colour choice but this universal influence can be moderated by cultural influences such as language, a position consistent with ‘weak Whorfianism’.