Assessing the impact of gender grammaticization on thought A psychological and psycholinguistic perspective

A critical question that has gained a resurgence of interest in recent years is the view that the languages we speak may be responsible for the way we think. In light of two theoretical approaches, linguistic relativity and the thinking-for-speaking hypothesis, the present paper offers a review of t...

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Published in:Osnabrücker Beiträge zur Sprachtheorie
Main Authors: Sato, Sayaka, Öttl, Anton, Gabriel, Ute, Gygax, Pascal Mark
Format: Journal Article
Language:German
Published: Philipps-Universität Marburg 2017
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Online Access:Online Access
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Summary:A critical question that has gained a resurgence of interest in recent years is the view that the languages we speak may be responsible for the way we think. In light of two theoretical approaches, linguistic relativity and the thinking-for-speaking hypothesis, the present paper offers a review of the empirical methods and findings of research on the relationship between language and thought. A particular focus is placed on the influence of grammatical gender cues on the cognitive representations of human and non-human entities. We demonstrate that formal linguistic features carry semantic denotations of sex, which are consequently projected to noun categories that should not necessarily bear these denotations. Moreover, we argue that the diverse empirical methods provide distinct insights into the extent to which language influences thought.
DOI:10.17192/obst.2017.90.8824