Abstract
This paper distinguishes three phases in the popularization of linguistic relativity: the phase initiated by Benjamin Lee Whorf himself; a second phase during which linguistic relativity was formulated and tested as a research hypothesis; and the current phase during which language-relativistic assumptions have penetrated the mass media. To diagnose the spread of relativistic assumptions, 560 articles in both English and Greek print and electronic media were considered. The articles were published over the period 2010–2019. They fall, roughly, into eighteen categories. Some of the articles report explicitly on linguistic relativity research, while others presuppose language-relativistic ideas in handling issues as disparate as the effectiveness of managerial discourse, the appropriateness of political correctness, or the possibility of communicating with aliens. The large number of article categories as well as the tacit assumption of linguistic relativity in a growing number of articles are indicators of how popular linguistic relativity has become in folk-linguistic discourse.
Highlights
Linguistic relativity per se—is the idea that each language expresses a different worldview; attached to it, is the twin idea that language determines thought—linguistic determinism. This is still how linguistic relativity is presented in introductory textbooks
McWhorter is not an opponent of relativity, but Pinker, who is, in The Stuff of Thought (2007) had observed that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis “through the early 1970s [...] had penetrated the popular consciousness” and that “recently it has been resurrected” under the label of neo-Whorfianism: “several recent studies purporting to show that language determines thought have been widely reported in the media” (Pinker, 2007, p. 128, 124–125)
The popularization of LR is a process that started with Benjamin Lee Whorf himself
Summary
Relativity did not originate with Whorf, but he was the one to baptize “it”; and he theorized about it. McWhorter is not an opponent of relativity, but Pinker, who is, in The Stuff of Thought (2007) had observed that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis “through the early 1970s [...] had penetrated the popular consciousness” and that “recently it has been resurrected” under the label of neo-Whorfianism: “several recent studies purporting to show that language determines thought have been widely reported in the media” LR is becoming the “dominant” ideology for certain linguistic issues—and that is what friends and foes, McWhorters and Pinkers, rightly foresaw
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