Linguistic Relations Research Articles

The influence of grammatical gender on the conceptualization of the world: A systematic literature review

Many recent studies on grammatical gender and linguistic relativity overlook the neuter, simplifying the issue to a binary gender system. This study critically and systematically reviews research from the past decade, following the PRISMA protocol. The findings reveal a significant downward trend in the number of studies conducted over the past four years and a bias toward German and English. Additionally, languages with threegender systems are often inaccurately represented by excluding the neuter, limiting generalizability. These implications affect both research on linguistic relativity and genderrelated disciplines. The lack of attention to neuter gender and the recent reduction in the number of studies raise concerns about the comprehensiveness of current research approaches and highlight the need for more inclusive and refined methodologies moving forward.

The Differences between Chinese and Western Names and Their Cultural Implications

Names serve as more than mere identifiers; they embody cultural values, identity formation, and societal norms. This study examines the similarities and differences between Chinese and Western naming conventions, exploring how these practices reflect broader cultural, historical, and religious influences. Drawing on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the research investigates how language—and consequently names—shapes worldviews and social structures. In China, naming conventions often emphasize familial ties, cultural heritage, and philosophical principles rooted in Confucian values and ancient traditions. In contrast, Western naming practices tend to prioritize individualism and personal expression, reflecting values of freedom and equality. The study highlights the importance of names in shaping identities and social interactions, particularly in a globalized context. Understanding these distinctions promotes intercultural dialogue and enhances mutual respect between Chinese and Western cultures. The findings suggest that names function as cultural markers, bridging personal identity with collective heritage, and tradition with modernity.

The role of hyperbole in conveying emotionality: the case of victim speech

ABSTRACT Figurative expressions are commonly used in everyday language as a device for conveying emotion. Hyperbole (e.g. “It took ages for him to arrive”) specifically can provide linguistic emphasis; especially when speakers wish to convey emotional evaluations of negative situations. In sexual crime cases, the victim’s behavioural emotionality often enhances credibility, however, some research suggests that hyperbole-induced linguistic emotionality can be perceived negatively. In this study, we examined whether hyperbole impacts perceived emotionality and assessed the extent of this impact on measures of valence, intensity, and appropriateness. Participants were professionals (police officers) or jury-eligible laypersons who rated testimonies containing either hyperbolic or non-hyperbolic expressions. Results suggested that the use of hyperbole increased the perceived emotional intensity of the testimony, but made testimonies appear less emotionally appropriate than non-hyperbolic counterparts. In addition, regardless of the presence of hyperbole, laypersons judged the scenarios to be more unpleasant, and more emotionally intense compared to professionals. Findings suggest discrepancies between hyperbole usage and discourse goals, versus its perception. That is, hyperbole effectively enhances emotionality, but its role in victim speech may come with more caveats than anticipated, particularly when considering the proposed importance of victim emotionality in establishing credibility.

Effects of the French grammatical gender system on bilingual adults' perception of objects

Abstract This study extends the line of linguistic relativity research by assessing the effect of the French grammatical gender system on French speakers' and learners' perception of objects. Four groups of 140 adults (English monolinguals, French monolinguals, English–French bilinguals and French–English bilinguals; N = 35 each) rated 32 selected objects' gender by assigning them a masculine/feminine voice on a slider. We also assessed the participants' second-language (L2) proficiency. Multilevel modelling results revealed that French monolinguals and English–French bilinguals rated objects' gender in line with the French grammatical gender system. The effect of French on perception was not reduced by acquiring English, as French–English bilinguals performed on par with French monolinguals. Moreover, the effect was independent of L2 proficiency. These findings suggest that learning a gendered L2 affects the perception of objects – thus supporting the linguistic relativity hypothesis.

Research on the Influence of Human Language on the Formation and Development of Thinking

The SapirWhorf Hypothesis has aroused great interest among anthropologists, linguists, and psychologists since its proposal. This article delves into the important role of human language in the formation, development, and application of thinking through the literature review and questionnaire survey. The main target of the study is the 0-50 year-old population whose native language is Chinese. An electronic questionnaire survey was conducted to reveal the close relationship between language and thinking. Research has found that language not only serves as a carrier of thinking but also plays a crucial role in shaping and driving the development of thinking. In this context, this article aims to systematically analyze the impact of language on thinking, in order to provide new perspectives and thoughts for research in related fields.

Transliteration in Selected Nigerian Novels and The Discourse in Traditional Ceremonies in Urhobo And Ukwani

The study investigates the use and importance of transliteration in selected Nigerian novels as well as the discourse in traditional ceremonies such as marriage and funeral in Urhobo and Ukwuani in Delta State. Unlike in literary works where some works have been done in transliteration, none has been carried out on the English used in traditional ceremonies. Even in literary works, studies on transliteration are mostly aimed at how English is "domesticated" to reflect African culture. None of the studies has actually specified what aspects of African culture each transliterated expression reflects. Owing to this gap in literature, this work aims at providing a socio-linguistic explanations for the special linguistic choices made in Achebe's Arrow of God, Anthills of the Savannah, Chimamanda Ngozi, Adichie's Purple Hibiscus and in traditional ceremonies. The theoritical framework adopted for the study is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis of communication accomodation, which attempts to explain the relationship between language and the interpretation of social reality. Data were sourced from the novels and the speeches of spokesmen in marriage and funeral ceremonies of heterogeneous nature and were analysed through descriptive method. The following research questions guided the analysis: i. Are there defining characteristics that determine the English used in the novels and the traditional ceremonies? ii. Are there similarities between the language used in the novels and the ones used in the traditional ceremonies? iii. Is the variety of English used relevant to African culture? iv. What specific aspects of African culture do the linguistic choices made reflect? The findings from the study show that the expressions identified reflect and promote African culture. The findings also show that there are similarities between the language of the novels and that of traditional ceremonies.

Effects of Homophone Priming on the Decision-Making in Perceptual Color Recognition of Mandarin Speakers

This study delves into the nuanced interactions between language, cognition, and perception by examining the impact of homophones on decision-making and perceptual color recognition among native Mandarin speakers. Drawing on theories of linguistic relativity and cognitive processing, this research hypothesized that homophonic primes would subtly influence both decision-making processes and color recognition tasks. Participants were assigned at random to surveys where they were unknowingly exposed to stimuli with and without homophonic primes before engaging in color recognition tasks involving subtle shade differentiations. Contrary to initial expectations, statistical analysis revealed no significant differences in decision-making accuracy between conditions, suggesting that homophones may not overtly affect conscious decision-making processes in our bilingual cohort. However, intriguing variations emerged in the perceptual color recognition task, where participants exposed to homophonic primes showed tendencies to perceive color shades more similarly compared to those in the control condition. This finding implies a potential cognitive load effect or subtle priming influence on perceptual categorization tied to linguistic structures. The implications of these findings challenge traditional views on language's role in shaping cognitive processes, highlighting the complexity of how linguistic structures such as homophones may operate at subconscious levels. The study contributes to ongoing debates in cognitive science and linguistics by underscoring the need for nuanced approaches to understanding cross-linguistic cognitive mechanisms. Future research should further explore the Whorfian hypothesis within bilingual contexts, considering additional variables such as language proficiency and cultural influences to elucidate the intricate relationship between language and cognition.

Deconstructing the Politics of Linguistic Mutation in Tom Stoppard’s Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth

Tom Stoppard’s theatrical works, Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth, serve as a significant exemplification of linguistic and political power dynamics. These plays represent a transformative shift that depicts the workings of hegemony in Czechoslovakia during the Cold War era. Stoppard, a Czechoslovakian native, crafted these satirical works in response to the brutal persecution of critical intellectuals and censorship of their dissident works. The plays voice the intellectual restlessness of the time, resisting the status quo, and illustrating the tensions that led to the 1989 Velvet Revolution. Stoppard’s innovative linguistic experimentation transforms Shakespeare’s plays, Hamlet and Macbeth, into an entirely novel linguistic system, named “Doggspeak,” which derives inspiration from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. This new linguistic transformation acts as a catalyst for social and political change, resisting surveillance and censorship of free speech. Stoppard’s plays, therefore, use language to alter power relations, creating space for political defiance. This paper delves into two key questions: How does Stoppard modify language in the dramatic setting, and how does this linguistic transformation shift power relations within the plays? By creating a new linguistic system, Stoppard outmanoeuvres oppressors and wittingly turns language into an instrument for political rebellion. He stages a truncated, mutant version of Shakespeare’s plays where they are banned, giving voice to the intellectual restlessness of Czechoslovakia in the 1970s. Stoppard’s plays posit that language is not merely a tool for communication, but also a vehicle for social and political transformation. Through linguistic mutation, Stoppard subverts the existing power structures and challenges the hegemony of the oppressors. This essay argues that Stoppard’s plays showcase the crucial significance of language in the struggle for political and social change, emphasizing the crucial role that language plays in shaping our perceptions and understanding of the world.

Европейская культурная традиция и мы: идеи М.К. Петрова

The subject of the article is the main problems of the European cultural tradition, considered by M.K. Petrov, and the questions of its specificity and continuity in the historical development from ancient philosophy to experimental sci­ence raised by him. The historical and philosophical context of his formation of the original theory of types of cultures is reconstructed. The rejection of He­gelian panlogism and the position on the universality of a linear development that is uniform for all cultures raises the question of the internal sources of cul­tural development. The article shows that Petrov is looking for answers on the paths of linguistics and the hypothesis of linguistic relativity. Turning to ancient philosophy allows Petrov to reconstruct the intellectual events caused by the emergence of language as a human invention, which broke ties with the former world of stable meanings and opened up the space for the emancipa­tion of the word and the desacralization of knowledge. In this context, the article examines a number of controversial issues about the biocode and sociocode, the name and sign that allowed them to remain the center of an extra-biological system of social coding, and about the diversity of cultures in a polycentric world. Questions are raised about the correlation of Petrov’s positions and mo­dern cultural anthropology

THE ROLE OF LINGUISTIC BACKGROUND IN SHAPING STUDENTS’ READING PROFICIENCY IN VIRTUAL SETTINGS: A CORRELATIONAL STUDY

This research draws from the linguistic relativity hypothesis and sociocultural literacy perspectives to investigate how students’ linguistic backgrounds influence their digital reading practices in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) settings. Specifically, it examines the impact of Algerian Arabic and Berber languages on digital literacy habits among university students. Utilizing a sociocultural approach that views reading as a social activity, a mixed-methods approach combining qualitative and quantitative analyses was employed to ensure the credibility of the findings. The study surveyed students from two different Algerian universities situated in cities where the inhabitants primarily speak different native languages, namely Kabyle and Arabic, respectively. The data were collected through a questionnaire and analysed using both statistical and content analysis methods. Results reveal contrasting reading practices between Arabic and Berber speakers, with Arabic speakers emphasizing cognitive benefits of reading, while Berber speakers view it as a cultural tradition, particularly evident in their digital literacy habits. Digital literacy, for Berber speakers, represents both freedom and a continuation of their oral heritage, shaping their preference for narrative texts. In contrast, Arabic speakers lean towards descriptive texts. In conclusion, this study underscores the influence of linguistic backgrounds on Algerian EFL students’ digital reading behaviours.

LEXICAL RELATIONS AND CONTEXTUAL MEANING ANALYSIS OF SURAH AL-KAHF IN ABDULLAH YUSUF ALI’S ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Direct translation of the Arabic Qur'an to other languages exists with the closest literal meaning due to the several absences of the exact equivalent meanings of words. Abdullah Yusuf Ali did one of the popular translation works from Arabic to English. One translation issue is the translator's bias, which leads this study to analyze the linguistic relations and contextual meanings in the English Qur'an translation to disclose the bias issue within and enclose prejudication arose. This qualitative study used the mixed technique of semantic analysis in four steps. The data of this research is the English translation of Chapter Al-Kahf (The Cave) verses 65-82 by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. The results of this study enclosed four types of lexical relations and four types of contextual meaning. Also, this study unintentionally found that the synonymy and antonymy pair categories consist of one verse pair and a different verse pair. Uniquely, a category of homonymy and five unrevealed patterns of contextual meaning used are also found in this study. This study concluded that the English translation of the Qur'an, Chapter Al-Kahf verses 65-82 by Abdullah Yusuf Ali has used several procedures to preserve the message within the Qur'an from being misinterpreted by the reader.

Linguistic Relativity and Entrepreneurial Alertness

Linguistic Relativity and Entrepreneurial Alertness

Unravelling the Cognitive Tapestry: An Exploration of the Interplay between Language and Thought

Language is the primary means through which people convey their thoughts, ideas, emotions, and intentions to others. Effective communication facilitates social interaction, collaboration, and the exchange of information across diverse contexts. It serves as a vehicle for preserving and transmitting cultural heritage from one generation to the next, fostering a sense of belonging and identity among speakers. Language is fundamental in education because it is how knowledge is obtained, shared, and assessed. Input, practice, feedback, and cultural immersion are all components of the dynamic and multidimensional process of language learning, which promotes cognitive growth, linguistic competency, and problem-solving abilities. Delving into the intricate workings of the human mind is a means of unraveling the Cognitive Tapestry. The very language we use influences the way we understand our environment and perceive the ultimate reality we live in. Language and thought are fundamental aspects of cognitive development in humans, each contributing to their ability to communicate, understand others, and navigate the world around them. This paper focuses on the psycholinguistic elements, language, and human thought and the former’s inevitable influence on the latter, as a cognitive process with regard to Linguistic relativity hypothesis. Further, this paper provides insights on the close relationship between language and the mental language in thought production using Language of Thought Hypothesis (LOTH).

Logical pluralism and linguistic relativism:

Logical pluralism and linguistic relativism:

Developing Cogent Strategies for the Lexical Development of Non-Dominant Languages: Empowering Linguistic have-Nots and Maximizing Linguistic Performance

We begin this paper by emphasizing the importance of language policy and language planning processes, and investigate its history in different contexts. We also draw reference to our previously published paper on the empowerment of linguistic have nots, and attempt to present and propose classificatory mechanisms of languages from the aforesaid perspective. We also then review the concepts of pedagogy, verbal intelligence, linguistic enculturation, linguistic ethnography, the Sapir Whorf hypothesis, linguistic workarounds and econolexia, and review and study patterns of lexical development among individuals in different contexts, and in different parts of the world. We interface these observations with first and second language acquisition patterns and theories as well. We then end this paper by debating and proposing various strategies for the lexical development of languages, particularly strategies for the lexical development of less dominant and future-ready languages. We do this by studying different case studies and experiences drawn from real-time studies carried out and conducted in different parts of the world, particularly experiences from developing countries, and then drawing inferences and generalizations there from. We anticipate that this would constitute an extremely important component of our globalization of science movement by boosting linguistic and economic performance of people in different cultures and different parts of the world, particularly those who lag behind or are otherwise underrepresented in science and economic development.

Perceptions of Japan in Hungarian Turanism

The lively Hungarian interest in Asian cultures and Japan before 1945 had several motifs, one of them being the idea of Turanism, which was formed around the ethnic, linguistic, and cultural relation of the Turanian (Ural-Altaic) peoples (including Hungarians) in the late 19th century and affected public thinking until 1945 in Hungary. The secondary literature on Turanism seems to have increased in volume in the past decades with a notable emphasis on Hungarian Turanism, and some new research has examined the issue of Japanese Turanism, making a connection with Hungarian Turanism as well. As Hungarian Turanism is regarded as a significant promoter and mediator of Turanism to other regions, too, it is important to analyse the manifold nature of this phenomenon with comprehensive approaches. The paper focuses on the Hungarian background of the Japan-related Turanist ideas with a multifaceted examination and interpretation of Hungarian Turanism based on original research of the contemporary sources (including publications, archival documents of Turanist and Japan-related associations, newspaper articles, and reports on Japan-related events) and the available secondary literature. The paper also aims to examine what perceptions of Japan appeared in the ideas of Turanism, to present why and how Japan was attributed a special significance in Hungarian Turanism, and to analyse the origin, meaning, and the contemporary importance of this outstanding role. In the course of research, new aspects have arisen for examination: the perceptions impacted by the Japanese development of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and by the notion of the situation of Japan ‘between East and West’ as similar to that of Hungary; the debate on modernisation; the isolation of Hungary after the World War I; and the cultural achievements of Hungarian Turanism. Examining the complexity of the Hungarian historical, cultural, and political context of the early 20th century in connection to the perceptions of the East of that time in Hungary may provide a more complex interpretation and deeper understanding of the formation of Turanist ideas.

The role of future time reference in cross-listing decisions: Cross-country evidence

This paper examines the impact of language on firms’ cross-listing decisions. Utilising the survival analysis on data from 28,602 firms in 44 countries, we hypothesise and find that firms whose operational languages do not grammatically distinguish the future from the present are more likely to cross-list as its first listing destination. After integrating crucial controls, adding various fixed effects, and conducting extensive robustness checks, this relationship remains consistent. Our additional analysis reveals that speakers of such languages on average exhibit stronger long-term orientated thinking, thus predisposing them to benefit from stringent regulations, reduced capital cost, and broader investor base, especially in countries with robust governance. This observation further supports the ‘bonding theory’ and ‘linguistic relativity theory’. Collectively, our research highlights the importance of the linguistic dimension in driving corporate financial decisions.

Корпусная интерпретация англоязычного экологического дискурса: лингвистические закономерности и функциональные особенности

English-language environmental speech has its own linguistic features. Ecological discourse is a relevant, self-sufficient, and highly identical communication continuum. This article introduces a corpus analysis of the English-language environmental discourse with its linguistic patterns and functional interpretation. The texts were considered not as static linguistic objects, but as a system of functional features in speech. The English-language research material was authentic and featured various environmental issues. Corpus analysis is a popular and reliable tool for big linguistic data while the corpus-discursive methodology proved to be an effective interdisciplinary tool. It was applied to the EuroNews Green Corpus, aggregated from 506 English-language texts on environmental issues. This innovative type of corpus can be qualified as instrumentally independent. The research proved the effectiveness of universal case managers or case shells of open architecture, e.g., Sketch Engine. Not only did it manage to collect the data, but also performed quite a complex structure analysis, interpreting, and discourse modeling. Corpus linguistics is looking for qualitatively new opportunities to identify complex linguistic relations. The case study provided a comprehensive description of environmental discourse as an object of linguistic research. Based on statistic details, the authors analyzed the categories of tokens, keywords, and terms to structure them as lemmas, collocations, and n-grams, which were presented as metadata. The metadata modeling provided concordances, thesauruses, and frequency glossaries. Environmental discourse had a pronounced lexical and semantic uniqueness resulting from specific ecological terminology. However, the multidimensional corpus analysis revealed an extremely low frequency of the key concept of ecology. Thus, this corpus study of the English-language ecological discourse demonstrated a good potential for further linguistic research.

INFLUENCE OF THE LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY ON LEARNING AND WORK OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The article analyses infl uence of linguistic relativity on existing neural networks, as well as to the fore-cast of the potential infl uence of this principle in the future on more advanced neural networks. The investigation provides an analysis of language situations when working with neural networks and a demonstration of specifi c examples of the infl uence of language on the work of AI, as well as possible situations of obtaining a positive eff ect when training neural networks considering the infl uence of linguistic relativity. Experiments conducted on neural networks demonstrating the existence of such an infl uence are described. The principles that allow to begin work on the formation of a framework for interaction with AI are formulated. The principle of engagement, which assumes that the factor of AI involvement in working with natural language not only in meanings, but also in connotations is to be taken into account. The principle of Kaja: to avoid endowing AI with consciousness and private world and not to use such metaphors.

RTRL: Relation-aware Transformer with Reinforcement Learning for Deep Question Generation

Deep question generation is an important yet challenging NLP task where a multi-step reasoning chain connecting multiple documents is required to answer the questions. In this paper, we propose a Relation-aware Transformer with Reinforcement Learning (RTRL) to improve the performance of deep question generation. Specifically, RTRL first utilizes the relation-aware Transformer to capture both the explicit linguistic and implicit semantic relations for better text representation. Besides, RTRL utilizes the sentence-level reward in a reinforcement learning framework to deal with the metric inconsistency between training and evaluation, and thus improve evaluation metrics with reference questions. Experimental results on the HotpotQA dataset show that RTRL outperforms baselines, highlighting its effectiveness in generating deep questions.