Rethinking Linguistic Relativity

Reviews / Votes

"...a very substantial volume indeed, contributing as much to the issue of linguistic relativity as to pragmatics and to a meaningful sociolinguistics. It sets out to take stock, and does so with quiet confidence. Those who ignore it will do so at their own peril." Rajendra Singh, Journal of Pragmatics "For a psychologist, this book will be useful in two ways. First, it represents a wealth of interesting evidence about how language influences cognition. Second, it provides a wide-ranging discussion of how the relation between language and thought should be constructed and investigated." Contemporary Psychology "...much of the range of Whorf's interests, from semantic diversity to the nature of culture, are reflected in this important book. The editors provide substantial introductions which make this book of particular use to students, as well as to scholars in anthropology, linguistics, and cognitive science." Claude Vandeloise, Canadian Journal of Linguistics "It is a major collection, with careful, well written - and often witty - papers, which analyze the notoriously difficult underlying logic of the argument, and provide detailed linguistic and ethnographic and/or experimental information on a range of non-Indo-European languages. The book is well worth reading...One of the main merits of the book is that it contains a higher density of ideas per page than the vast majority of books...The book is beautifully printed..." Multilingua "This is a splendid volume. John Gumperz and Stephen Levinson have collected a strong set of chapters and transformed them into a model of what an edited volume should be....readers are given a ringside seat to a fascinating controversy that has gone on for centuries and promises to continue for as far as we can see in the future. For some readers, the major contribution of this volume will be its capacity to provide a coherent picture of the similarities and relationships among various research efforts concerned with linguistic relativity." Semiotica