ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two factors – one pertaining to characteristics of a given language or languages, and the other pertaining to behaviour of the speakers of the language or languages under consideration. During the late twenties and throughout the thirties two American linguists – Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf – strikingly formulated anew the view that the characteristics of language have determining influences on cognitive processes. The Whorfian hypothesis represents a groping toward the scientific restatement and the objective evaluation of language-and-behaviour phenomena that are related to this ill-defined pre-scientific and value-laden area that has hitherto been shaped primarily by strong beliefs and emotions. The Whorfian hypothesis essentially represents an attempt to study linguistic relativity by the means of modern social science methods. The fascination of the Whorfian hypothesis is in some ways compounded of both delights and horrors.
