An interesting topic that I recently learned about in my AP Psychology class and struggled to comprehend at first was that of linguistic determinism. This psychological concept is the theory that the language we grow up speaking and thinking in determines and limits our knowledge and thought processes. When I first learnt about this, I thought to myself how is this possible? Then it occurred to me to do some more research and write about it here. Interestingly enough, when I thought about how this theory personally applied to me, I was able to find a surprising application. If you have not read the About Me section, I have lived in Italy my whole life and spent most of my formative years there. Although I have American parents and speak English at home, I am equally comfortable in both languages and find myself thinking in both interchangeably. There is a phrase often used in Italy (especially by angry parents on the soccer pitch) called “rompere le palle.” This directly translates to breaking the (or my) balls. However, it has a completely different meaning. I find this phrase interesting because it more or less socially translates to being annoyed, but in my mind, it is a different and indescribable feeling that makes me feel like I am being smushed and need to get out of a situation. I have tried to describe this feeling to my friends and made an interesting cultural observation. The English speakers could not seem to understand the feeling, but my Italian friends understood me completely, clearly showing how the culture and language we surround ourselves with influences us, and a reminder that no matter how subtle, each of us has perceptible biases that may influence how we interpret and study other cultures.

Intrigued by my own personal experience, I wanted to do some research on the concept and soon discovered linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf’s work. Perhaps the most widely known example of this phenomenon was discovered in studying the Hopi people of the American Southwest. Whorf, alongside Edward Saèir, argued that the Hopi language structure causes them to organize time in a fundamentally different way that alters the perception of time compared to Europeans. Whereas the Western world languages divide time into past, present, and future, Whorf found the Hopi language has no tenses in its verbs, so they think of time as a continuous, unfolding circle and life as almost “timeless.” While there have been pushbacks on Whorf’s theory (and his research methods), the idea remains just as striking. Whether or not you experience and conceptualize time just based on your language’s structure is, for lack of a better word, crazy. 

What I take from both my personal experience and my further research is that language is not just a simple communication tool but an influencing factor on the way we interact and perceive the world.  For me, that is an extremely humbling thought and will alter the way I think about human behavior. The main message I draw from this is not to somehow transcend your own language and culture but to remain curious because you never know how someone else is thinking, and whether you would even understand them.

Works Cited 

Whorf, B. L. (1956). Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. MIT Press.

Sapir, E. (1929). “The Status of Linguistics as a Science.” Language, 5(4), 207–214.

Boroditsky, L. (2011). “How Language Shapes Thought.” Scientific American, 304(2), 62–65.