Learner Resource17‒Language reflectionism and determinism

Why does it matter what we call people, or how we describe them?

Well that depends on what you believe the relationship is between how we speak/write and how we think.

  • Does the language we use merely reflect what people think? This is often the argument for the newspaper’s choice of words (for example, ‘well …this is what our readers say/think/believe - we are just reflecting their attitudes and words’)
  • Does language determine/shape how we think?

These two positions are called:

Linguistic reflectionism and Linguistic determinism

  • Linguistic reflectionism suggests that language simply reflects the needs, views and opinions of its users. But what if those views are racist, or homophobic, or sexist etc.? Is it OK to let that language continue?
  • Linguistic determinism suggests that language shapes our thoughts, so that if we constantly hear women, or black people or gay people or refugees being described in the same negative ways we too will end up thinking the same about them – this language will determine our thoughts about them…and will continue to do so even when we are not conscious about the language we are ‘taking on board’.

Linguistic determinism is associated with Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf (as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) and it maintains that language controls our perceptions of reality – influencing us to think in certain ways. The argument is, that to change attitudes, (and we should all want to change sexist, racist, xenophobic, homophobic and other prejudiced attitudes, shouldn’t we?) we need to change language. This is why a more inclusive language to label groups has emerged since the 1970s[1] so we no longer think it is acceptable to use pejorative terms for women, people from ethnic minorities, disabled people, gay people etc. Sapir and Whorf’s original contention (the strong version) was that language controls and determines the way we think – hence the term ‘determinism’.

Version 11© OCR 2017

Linguistic variations of power

Nowadays this is seen as too strong a claim, for, if this were true, we would never be able to think beyond our language and create new terms. A weaker version of the same idea is called linguistic relativity which claims that language exerts a powerful influence over how we think and behave.

It is important, also, to realise that not every linguist agrees with either of these claims (John McWhorter for example in his book Why The World LooksThe Same in Any Language OUP 2014.)

Nevertheless, what this boils down to is that, either way, language is a powerful force; every time we use language we can shape other people’s attitudes, either towards us or towards the ideas we choose to represent. Language can be at once a reflection of our attitudes and a means to shape attitudes, and this is at the heart of the debate about why representation matters.

So as well as looking at how any text communicates authority and power to its audience/reader, we need also to look at how individuals, groups, institutions and events are represented in any text.

Version 11© OCR 2017

Linguistic variations of power

[1]Much maligned, so-called ‘politically correct’ language. More of this in the Gender topic.