认知语言学与语言相对论

注：机翻，未校。

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Cognitive Linguistics and Linguistic Relativity

Published: 18 September 2012

Abstract and Keywords 摘要和关键词

Linguistic relativity (also known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis) is a general cover term for the conjunction of two basic notions. The first notion is that languages are relative, that is, that they vary in their expression of concepts in noteworthy ways. The second notion is that the linguistic expression of concepts has some degree of influence over conceptualization in cognitive domains, which need not necessarily be linguistically mediated. This article explores the treatment of linguistic relativity within works generally representative of cognitive linguistics and presents a survey of classic and more modern (pre- and post-1980s) research within linguistics, anthropology, and psychology.
语言相对论（也称为 Sapir-Whorf 假说）是两个基本概念结合的通用术语。第一个概念是语言是相对的，也就是说，它们在概念的表达上以值得注意的方式有所不同。第二个概念是概念的语言表达对认知领域的概念化有一定程度的影响，而认知领域的概念化不一定是语言中介的。本文探讨了通常代表认知语言学的作品中对语言相对性的处理，并对语言学、人类学和心理学中的经典和更现代（1980 年代之前和之后）的研究进行了调查。

First, it provides a brief overview of the history of linguistic relativity theorizing from Wilhelm von Humboldt through to Benjamin Whorf. It then discusses the role of literacy to cognitive and cultural development, folk classification, and formulations of linguistic relativity.
首先，它简要概述了从威廉·冯·洪堡 （Wilhelm von Humboldt） 到本杰明·沃尔夫 （Benjamin Whorf） 的语言相对论理论历史。然后，它讨论了识字对认知和文化发展、民间分类和语言相对论的表述的作用。

Keywords: Wilhelm von Humboldt, linguistic relativity, Benjamin Whorf, cognitive linguistics, linguistics, anthropology, psychology, literacy, folk classification
关键词：Wilhelm von Humboldt，语言相对论，Benjamin Whorf，认知语言学，语言学，人类学，心理学，识字，民俗分类

Introduction 介绍

Linguistic relativity (also known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis) is a general cover term for the conjunction of two basic notions. The first notion is that languages are relative, that is, that they vary in their expression of concepts in noteworthy ways. What constitutes “noteworthy” is, of course, a matter of some interpretation. Cognitive scientists interested in human universals will often describe some particular linguistic variation as essentially minor, while others, for example, some anthropological linguists, may describe the same variation as significant.
语言相对论（也称为 Sapir-Whorf 假说）是两个基本概念结合的通用术语。第一个概念是语言是相对的，也就是说，它们在概念的表达上以值得注意的方式有所不同。当然，什么是“值得注意的”是一个解释的问题。对人类普遍性感兴趣的认知科学家通常会描述一些特定的语言差异本质上是微小的，而其他人，例如一些人类学语言学家，可能会将相同的变化描述为显著的。

The second component notion to linguistic relativity is that the linguistic expression of concepts has some degree of influence over conceptualization in cognitive domains, which need not necessarily be linguistically mediated. In textbooks, this notion of language affecting conceptualization is typically divided into “strong” and “weak” hypotheses. The “strong” hypothesis (also known as linguistic determinism) is that the variable categories of language essentially control the available categories of general cognition. As thus stated, this “strong” hypothesis is typically dismissed as untenable. The “weak” hypothesis states that the linguistic categories may influence the categories of thought but are not fundamentally restrictive. As thus stated, this “weak” hypothesis is typically considered trivially true.
语言相对性的第二个组成部分是概念的语言表达对认知领域的概念化有一定程度的影响，这不一定需要语言中介。在教科书中，这种影响概念化的语言概念通常分为“强”和“弱”假设。“强”假设（也称为语言决定论）是语言的可变类别基本上控制着一般认知的可用类别。如前所述，这个“强”假设通常被认为站不住脚。“弱”假说指出，语言类别可能会影响思想的类别，但从根本上不是限制性的。如前所述，这个“弱”假设通常被认为是微不足道的。

Arguably, this simplification of the broad issue of the relationship between linguistic and cognitive categorization into two simple (“strong” vs. “weak”) statements has impeded development of genuinely testable hypotheses and has helped lead studies of linguistic relativity into academic ill-repute. Modern research into the general question of linguistic relativity has focused on more narrowly stated hypotheses for testing, that is, investigating the specific relationships between particular linguistic categories (e.g., the categories of number, color, or spatial direction) and more exactly specified cognitive operations (e.g., encoding into long-term memory or deductive reasoning).
可以说，将语言学和认知分类之间关系的广泛问题简化为两个简单（“强”与“弱”）陈述的做法阻碍了真正可检验的假设的发展，并导致语言相对论的研究在学术上名誉扫地。对语言相对性一般问题的现代研究集中在更狭义的测试假设上，即研究特定语言类别（例如，数字、颜色或空间方向的类别）与更确切的认知操作（例如，编码为长期记忆或演绎推理）之间的特定关系。

This chapter is organized as (i) a brief history of the research question (section 2); (ii) a discussion of the challenges in designing research into linguistic relativity (section 3); (iii) the treatment of linguistic relativity within works generally representative of Cognitive Linguistics (section 4); and (iv) a survey of classic and more modern (pre- and post-1980s) research within linguistics, anthropology, and psychology (section 5).
本章组织为 （i） 研究问题的简史（第 2 节）;（ii） 讨论设计语言相对性研究的挑战（第 3 节）;（iii） 在通常代表认知语言学的作品中对语言相对性的处理（第 4 节）;（iv） 对语言学、人类学和心理学中经典和更现代（1980 年代前和后）研究的调查（第 5 节）。

In addition to this chapter, several other surveys of linguistic relativity may be consulted. Lucy (1997a) gives a broad overview of different approaches which have investigated linguistic relativity, while Lucy (1992b) elaborates on a particular empirical approach and provides detailed critiques of previous empirical work. Lee (1996) provides historical documentation to the often poorly understood work of Benjamin Lee Whorf (see also Lee 2000). Hill and Mannheim (1992) trace the history of the notion of world view with respect to language through twentieth-century anthropology, from Boas through Cognitive Linguistics of the 1980s to the work of John Lucy. Hill and Mannheim also provides a useful overview of the anthropological cum semiotic approach to culturally embedded language use—see especially Hanks (1990) and Silverstein (1985, 1987).
除了本章之外，还可以查阅其他几篇关于语言相对性的调查。Lucy （1997a） 对研究语言相对性的不同方法进行了广泛的概述，而 Lucy （1992b） 详细阐述了一种特定的实证方法，并对以前的实证工作进行了详细的批评。Lee （1996） 为 Benjamin Lee Whorf 经常被理解甚少的工作提供了历史文献（另见 Lee 2000）。Hill 和 Mannheim （1992） 通过 20 世纪的人类学追溯了关于语言的世界观概念的历史，从 Boas 到 1980 年代的认知语言学，再到 John Lucy 的工作。Hill 和 Mannheim 还对文化嵌入语言使用的人类学兼符号学方法进行了有用的概述——特别参见 Hanks （1990） 和 Silverstein （1985， 1987）。

Smith (1996) also discusses the writings of Sapir and Whorf to clarify that most popular accounts of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis are not directly derivative of their work. She is also concerned that the relatively large-scale dismissal of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in academic culture has been at the expense of serious research into the relationships
Smith （1996） 还讨论了 Sapir 和 Whorf 的著作，以澄清大多数流行的 Sapir-Whorf 假说并不是他们工作的直接衍生物。她还担心，学术文化中对 Sapir-Whorf 假说的相对大规模的否定是以牺牲对关系的认真研究为代价的

between language and thought. Similar discussion of the “demise” of the “Whorf Hypothesis” and the misconstrual of Whorf’s actual writings can be found in Alford (1978).¹
在语言和思想之间。关于“Whorf 假说”的“消亡”和对 Whorf 实际著作的误解的类似讨论可以在 Alford （1978） 中找到。

Koerner (2000) also provides a survey of the “pedigree” of linguistic relativity “from Locke to Lucy,” that is, from the seventeenth through the twentieth century. chapters 10– 12 of Foley (1997) as well provide historical coverage of the notion, with summaries of fairly recent work with spatial language and classifiers. Duranti (1997) similarly provides historical coverage with particular emphasis on the American anthropology traditions.
Koerner （2000） 还对“从洛克到露西”，即从 17 世纪到 20 世纪的语言相对论的“谱系”进行了调查。Foley （1997） 的第 10-12 章也提供了该概念的历史覆盖范围，并总结了空间语言和分类器的最新工作。Duranti （1997） 同样提供了历史报道，特别强调美国人类学传统。

Hunt and Agnoli (1991) revisit linguistic relativity from the perspective of cognitive psychology, which had largely rejected the notion as either false or uninteresting during the 1970s. Within canonical Cognitive Linguistics, Lakoff (1987) dedicates chapter 18 of Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things to discussions of evidence for and types of linguistic relativity. Many of the principles from that chapter have informed the remainder of his work.
Hunt 和 Agnoli （1991） 从认知心理学的角度重新审视了语言相对论，认知心理学在 1970 年代在很大程度上拒绝了这个概念，认为它是错误的或无趣的。在经典认知语言学中，Lakoff （1987） 在《女人、火和危险的事物》的第 18 章中专门讨论了语言相对性的证据和类型。该章中的许多原则为他的其余工作提供了信息。

Historical Speculation and Modern Formulations 历史推测和现代表述

Given the wealth of historical surveys of linguistic relativity, this chapter will focus more on modern work and methodological issues. However, a brief overview of the history of linguistic relativity theorizing will help to situate the modern research questions.
鉴于语言相对论的历史考察非常丰富，本章将更多地关注现代工作和方法论问题。然而，对语言相对论理论历史的简要概述将有助于定位现代研究问题。

From Humboldt through Whorf 从 Humboldt 到 Whorf

The most widely cited intellectual antecedent for linguistic relativity is the work of Humboldt. Later, the work of Boas is widely seen as the inheritor of the Humboldtian notions and through him, the concern with linguistic relativity was taken up in the writings of Sapir, who developed the vital notion of the “patterns” or structural systematicity of language as being particularly relevant to the relationship between language, mind, and culture.
语言相对论最被广泛引用的知识先驱是洪堡的工作。后来，博阿斯的工作被广泛视为洪堡观念的继承者，通过他，萨皮尔的著作中涉及了对语言相对性的关注，他发展了语言的“模式”或结构系统性的重要概念，与语言、思想和文化之间的关系特别相关。

Humboldt’s principal work addressing linguistic relativity is Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlecht [On the diversity of human language construction and its influence on the mental development of the human species]. There are many editions and translations of this work; for a recent edition of Peter Heath’s English translation, see Losonsky (1999). The philosophical precursors to Humboldt, as well as linguistic relativity in general, is discussed in Manchester (1985), and an overview of Humboldt’s notion of language and Weltansicht (‘world view’) is provided in Brown (1967).
洪堡关于语言相对论的主要著作是 Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlecht [论人类语言构建的多样性及其对人类物种心理发展的影响]。这部作品有许多版本和翻译;有关彼得·希思 （Peter Heath） 的英文翻译的最新版本，请参见 Losonsky （1999）。Manchester （1985） 讨论了洪堡的哲学前身以及一般的语言相对论，Brown （1967） 概述了洪堡的语言概念和 Weltansicht（“世界观”）。

The writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf are best known through Carroll’s edited collection Whorf (1956). This collection helped to popularize the notion that the categories of language may influence the categories of thought. However, Lee (1996) argues— especially in light of the previously unpublished “Yale report” (see Whorf and Trager [1938] 1996)—that Whorf was concerned with the interpenetration of language and thought; that is, the two words language and thought refer to aspects of a single system, and it is a misapprehension to ask in what way one affects the other. This is quite distinct from the more modular view of language processing dominant in current psychology and linguistics.
本杰明·李·沃尔夫 （Benjamin Lee Whorf） 的著作最广为人知的是卡罗尔编辑的文集 Whorf （1956）。这本合集有助于普及语言类别可能影响思想类别的观念。然而，Lee （1996） 认为——特别是考虑到以前未发表的“耶鲁报告”（参见 Whorf 和 Trager [1938] 1996）——Whorf 关注语言和思想的相互渗透;也就是说，语言和思想这两个词指的是一个系统的各个方面，问一个以什么方式影响另一个是一种误解。这与当前心理学和语言学中占主导地位的更模块化的语言处理观点截然不同。

Literacy 识字

While modern linguistics places considerable emphasis on spoken language—which means that this chapter will focus on the potential cognitive impact of the categories found in spoken or signed languages—the role of literacy to cognitive and cultural development has long been a subject of debate.
虽然现代语言学非常重视口语——这意味着本章将重点关注口语或手语中类别的潜在认知影响——但识字对认知和文化发展的作用长期以来一直是一个争论的话题。

Early twentieth-century experiments on the relationship between literacy and cognitive development were conducted by Aleksandr Luria and colleagues (for an overview in English, see Luria 1976). This classic work investigated the effects of previously established, Soviet-era adult literacy programs on the development of various cognitive skills. There were a number of methodological problems with that work—perhaps the most significant one being the confounding of formal schooling with the acquisition of literacy (or conversely, the lack of formal schooling with nonliterate populations). The largest single effort to overcome this common confound is reported by Scribner and Cole (1981), who investigated effects of literacy acquisition in the absence of formal schooling. The designs and subject pools were still not completely free of confounding factors and the results, while fascinating, give a largely mixed picture of the effects of literacy as an independent factor on cognition.
20 世纪初，Aleksandr Luria 及其同事进行了关于识字和认知发展之间关系的实验（有关英文概述，请参阅 Luria 1976）。这部经典著作调查了先前建立的苏联时代成人扫盲计划对各种认知技能发展的影响。这项工作存在许多方法论问题——也许最重要的问题是将正规学校教育与获得识字能力混为一谈（或者相反，非文盲人群缺乏正规学校教育）。Scribner 和 Cole （1981） 报告了克服这种常见混淆的最大单一努力，他们研究了在没有正规学校教育的情况下识字习得的影响。设计和科目库仍然并非完全没有混杂因素，结果虽然令人着迷，但在很大程度上给出了识字作为独立因素对认知的影响的混合图景。

“The literacy hypothesis,” namely that various cultural features can be traced to the development of literacy in the history of a given culture, has been subject to considerable debate. Goody and Watt (1962), one of the better known works, extolled the effects of specifically alphabetic literacy as critical in the development of early Greek and later European culture. This view came under considerable criticism, and Goody himself later backed away from the specific claims about alphabetic literacy.² However, on a more general level, the claim that literacy engenders certain cognitive changes—especially enhanced metalinguistic awareness—continues to be argued. Readers interested in the effects of literacy on cognition could also consult Scinto (1986), Graff (1987), Olson (1991, 2002), Ong (1992), and references therein.
“识字假说”，即各种文化特征可以追溯到特定文化历史上识字的发展，一直受到相当大的争论。Goody 和 Watt （1962） 是最著名的著作之一，它赞扬了特定字母识字的影响，认为它对早期希腊和后来的欧洲文化的发展至关重要。这种观点受到了相当大的批评，古迪本人后来也放弃了关于字母识字的具体主张。然而，在更普遍的层面上，识字会引起某些认知变化——特别是增强的元语言意识——的说法仍在争论。对识字对认知影响感兴趣的读者也可以查阅 Scinto （1986）、Graff （1987）、Olson （1991， 2002）、Ong （1992） 及其参考文献。

Rather than studying the general effects of reading and writing on cognition, one line of research has been concerned with the effects of learning particular writing systems.
与其研究阅读和写作对认知的一般影响，不如说有一条研究线关注学习特定书写系统的影响。

Morais et al. (1979) investigate the effects of child-acquired literacy on phonemic
Morais et al. （1979） 研究了儿童获得识字对音素的影响

awareness, and Read et al. (1986) present evidence arguing that alphabetic literacy, but not logographic and syllabic literacy, leads to phonemic awareness. In Danziger and Pederson (1998) and Pederson (2003), I argue that familiarity with specific graphemic qualities can lead to differences in visual categorization in nonwriting/nonreading tasks.
awareness 和 Read et al. （1986） 提供的证据证明，字母识字，而不是语素和音节识字，导致音素意识。在 Danziger 和 Pederson （1998） 和 Pederson （2003） 中，我认为熟悉特定的字素品质会导致非写作/非阅读任务中视觉分类的差异。

Folk Classification 民俗分类

Anthropologists have long been concerned with folk classification, that is, the culturally specific ways in which linguistic and other categories are organized into coherent systems. Perhaps the richest body of work is in the area of taxonomies of natural kinds (plants, animals, etc.). This research is conveniently served by having a scientific standard for comparison. While there is abundant anecdotal evidence that people interact with natural kinds according to their taxonomical relations to other natural kinds (e.g., X is a pet, so treat it like other pets), there has not been much in the way of psychological- style testing of specific linguistic relativity hypotheses in this domain. For an introduction to folk classification, see Hunn (1977, 1982), Berlin, Breedlove, and Raven (1973), Berlin (1978), and Blount (1993).
人类学家长期以来一直关注民间分类，即语言和其他类别被组织成连贯系统的文化特定方式。也许最丰富的工作是在自然种类（植物、动物等）的分类学领域。通过有一个科学的比较标准，可以方便地为这项研究提供服务。虽然有大量的轶事证据表明，人们根据自然物种与其他自然物种的分类学关系与自然物种互动（例如，X 是宠物，所以要像对待其他宠物一样对待它），但在这一领域，对特定语言相对性假设的心理学式测试并不多。有关民间分类的介绍，请参见 Hunn （1977， 1982）、Berlin、Breedlove 和 Raven （1973）、Berlin （1978） 和 Blount （1993）。

Formulations of Linguistic Relativity 语言相对论的表述

There are many semantic domains one could search for linguistic relativity effects—that is, domains in which one might find linguistic categories conditioning nonlinguistic categorization. For example, cultures and languages are notorious for having varying kinship terms, which group into major types with various subtypes. Importantly, the categories of allowable behaviors with kin tend to correspond to the grouping by kinship terminology. For example, South Indian (Dravidian) languages systematically distinguish between cross-cousins and parallel cousins, with marriage allowed between cross-cousins and incest taboo applying to parallel cousins. In contrast, North Indian languages typically classify all cousins with siblings and incest taboo applies to all (see Carter 1973).
有许多语义域可以搜索语言相对性效应——也就是说，人们可能会在其中找到影响非语言分类的语言类别。例如，文化和语言因具有不同的亲属关系术语而臭名昭著，这些术语分为具有不同子类型的主要类型。重要的是，亲属允许的行为类别往往对应于按亲属关系术语分组。例如，南印度（德拉威语）语言系统地区分跨表亲和平行表亲，允许跨表亲结婚，禁忌适用于平行表亲。相比之下，北印度语言通常将所有表亲与兄弟姐妹归类，禁忌适用于所有表亲（参见 Carter 1973）。

However important sexual reproduction may be to our species, the standards of marriage are clearly the result of cultural convention overlaid on biological predispositions.
无论有性繁殖对我们物种来说多么重要，婚姻的标准显然是叠加在生物倾向之上的文化习俗的结果。

Accordingly, finding linguistic variation corresponding to categories of human behavior in such a domain is not generally taken as a particularly revealing demonstration of linguistic relativity. Likewise, elaborated vocabulary sets in expert domains and impoverished sets where there is little experience, however interesting, are also not taken as particularly revealing. While a tropical language speaker may lack the broad vocabulary of English for discussing frozen precipitation, that same speaker may be quite particular in distinguishing what English speakers lump together as ‘cousins’.
因此，在这样一个领域中找到与人类行为类别相对应的语言变异通常不会被视为语言相对性的特别揭示性证明。同样，专家领域中详尽的词汇集和经验很少的贫乏词汇集，无论多么有趣，也不被认为是特别具有启发性的。虽然说热带语言的人可能缺乏英语的广泛词汇来讨论冰冻降水，但同一位说者可能非常特别地区分说英语的人被归为“表亲”的东西。

In other words, cases of categorization which are dependent on environmentally or culturally variable experience are generally considered uninteresting domains for the study of linguistic relativity. This corresponds to the late twentieth-century bias toward universalism in the cognitive sciences; namely, for variation to be noteworthy, it should be in a domain where variation was not previously thought to be possible. That is to say, for linguistic relativity to be broadly interesting, it must apply within cognitive domains which operate on “basic” and universal human experience.
换句话说，依赖于环境或文化变化经验的分类情况通常被认为是语言相对论研究的无趣领域。这与 20 世纪后期对认知科学中的普遍主义;也就是说，要使变化值得注意，它应该位于以前认为不可能变化的领域。也就是说，语言相对论要想广泛有趣，它必须适用于以“基本”和普遍的人类经验为基础的认知领域。

Challenges in Researching Linguistic Relativity 研究语言相对性的挑战

Intralinguistic Variation 语言内变异

Speakers may use language differently across different contexts, and this difference may be indicative of shifting conceptual representations. One of the few studies within Cognitive Linguistics to empirically address intralinguistic variation is Geeraerts, Grondelaers, and Bakema (1994, especially chapter 4: “Onomasiological Variation”), which explores alternative expressions as the representation of different construals and perspectivization.
说话人在不同的上下文中可能会以不同的方式使用语言，这种差异可能表明概念表征的变化。认知语言学中为数不多的实证解决语言内部差异的研究之一是 Geeraerts、Grondelaers 和 Bakema（1994 年，特别是第 4 章：“拟声学变异”），它探讨了替代表达作为不同解释和透视化的表示。

Of course, some of these alternative expressions may be confined to some subcommunities and dialects. While linguistic relativity is typically discussed as the difference across speakers of distinct languages, there is every reason to wonder about parallels with differences in conceptualization that may exist within a single language community. Speakers of different dialects may have different linguistic patterns which might be hypothesized to correspond to different habitual conceptualizations. In Pederson (1993, 1995), I investigate communities of Tamil speakers who systematically vary in their preference for terms of spatial reference, but who otherwise speak essentially the same dialect.
当然，其中一些替代表达可能仅限于某些子社区和方言。虽然语言相对性通常被讨论为不同语言使用者之间的差异，但完全有理由怀疑单个语言社区中可能存在的概念化差异的相似之处。不同方言的使用者可能具有不同的语言模式，这可能被假设为对应于不同的习惯性概念化。在 Pederson （1993， 1995） 中，我调查了泰米尔语使用者的社区，这些社区对空间参考术语的偏好系统性地不同，但在其他方面他们基本上说相同的方言。

The work of Loftus (1975) has demonstrated that the choice of particular linguistic expressions at the time of encoding or recall may well influence nonlinguistic representation of events. Extrapolating from Loftus’s work, we might wonder to what extent language generally can prime specific nonlinguistic representations—I call this the language as prime model. The fact that social humans are surrounded by linguistic input suggests that there might be a cumulative effect of this language priming. Indeed, if a particular linguistic encoding presented before a certain perception influences the nonlinguistic encoding or recall of that perception, what then might be the cumulative effect of one type of linguistic encoding rather than another being used throughout a speaker’s personal history? If, for example, the classifiers of a speaker’s habitual language force categorization of certain objects as ‘long and thin’, it seems reasonable that such objects may be remembered as potentially longer or thinner than they actually were.
Loftus （1975） 的工作表明，在编码或回忆时对特定语言表达的选择很可能会影响事件的非语言表示。从 Loftus 的工作中推断，我们可能想知道语言通常在多大程度上可以引导特定的非语言表征——我称之为语言作为主导模型。社会人类被语言输入包围的事实表明，这种语言启动可能存在累积效应。事实上，如果在某种感知之前呈现的特定语言编码影响了该感知的非语言编码或回忆，那么在说话人的个人历史中使用一种语言编码而不是另一种类型的语言编码的累积效应可能是什么？例如，如果说话者习惯性语言的分类器强制将某些物体归类为“又长又细”，那么这些物体可能被记住为可能比实际更长或更细，这似乎是合理的。

Of course, if there were no consistent pattern to the linguistic priming, then we would not expect any single representation to become dominant. Indeed, Kay (1996) has argued that there is considerable flexibility within any language for alternative representations, and speakers may well alternate from one representation to another. This suggests that rather than a single and simple “world-view” necessary for a cleanly testable hypothesis, speakers may draw on complex “repertoires” of representations. While this does not preclude the possibility of systematic differences across languages having different repertoires, it certainly argues that the differences are far less obvious.
当然，如果语言启动没有一致的模式，那么我们就不会期望任何单一的表示成为主导。事实上，Kay （1996） 认为，任何语言中都有相当大的灵活性来选择替代表示，说话人很可能从一种表示交替到另一种表示。这表明，演讲者可以借鉴复杂的表征“曲目”，而不是一个干净可检验的假设所必需的单一而简单的“世界观”。虽然这并不排除具有不同曲目的语言之间存在系统性差异的可能性，但它肯定表明这些差异远不那么明显。

Given flexibility within a single language, a linguistic relativity hypothesis to be tested may need to compare patterns which are pervasive in one language and underexpressed in another language. This can be difficult to compensate for in an experimental design. A balanced design might seek opposing, but functionally equivalent systems, which are dominant in each language community. Each community may have both systems in common, but not to the same level of default familiarity. Of course, the experimental measure needs to be sufficiently non-priming itself so as to allow each subject population to rely on their default mode of representation.
鉴于单一语言内的灵活性，要检验的语言相对论假设可能需要比较在一种语言中普遍存在而在另一种语言中表达不足的模式。这在实验设计中可能很难补偿。平衡的设计可能会寻求对立但功能等效的系统，这些系统在每个语言社区中都占主导地位。每个社区可能具有两个系统，但默认熟悉程度不同。当然，实验措施本身需要足够非启动，以允许每个受试者群体依赖他们默认的表示模式。

Selecting a Domain 选择域

Universals in categorization may be of more than one type. Most relevantly, some categories may be essentially innate, that is, an internal predisposition of the organism. Other universal categories maybe the result of commonalities of all human environments in conjunction with our innately driven mechanisms. Even assuming that we can reliably presume that certain categories are universal, determining which are purely innate and which derive from interaction with universal properties of the environment is not a trivial task.
分类中的普遍性可能有多种类型。最相关的是，某些类别可能本质上是先天性的，即生物体的内部易感性。其他普遍的类别可能是所有人类环境的共性与我们天生驱动的机制相结合的结果。即使假设我们可以可靠地假设某些类别是普遍的，确定哪些是纯粹与生俱来的，哪些来自与环境的普遍属性的相互作用，也不是一件容易的事。

Variation in innate properties is impossible—except inasmuch as the variation is within innately proscribed limits—so we cannot look for linguistic relativity effects in these domains. For linguistic relativity effects to be both interesting to cognitive scientists and robust in their operations, they must apply in a domain which is generally presumed universal by virtue of the common environment, but which can be hypothesized to be nonuniversal. As discussed above, demonstrating effects from language type in cognitive domains with wide variation is unexciting. It follows that the researcher interested in testing linguistic relativity best seeks a domain which is hypothesized to be fairly basic to cognition, but just shy of exhibiting a universal pattern.
先天特性的变异是不可能的——除非这种变异在先天禁止的范围内——所以我们不能在这些领域寻找语言相对论效应。为了使语言相对性效应对认知科学家来说既有趣又稳健，它们必须适用于一个通常由于共同环境而被假定为普遍性的领域，但可以假设该领域是非普遍的。如上所述，在具有广泛变化的认知领域中展示语言类型的影响并不令人兴奋。因此，对测试语言相对论感兴趣的研究人员最好地寻找一个被假设为对认知相当基础的领域，但又不敢表现出普遍模式。

This motivates modern linguistic relativity studies to examine categorization in domains presumed to derive somewhat immediately from basic perceptual stimuli or fundamental mechanisms of reasoning. The majority of such empirical studies concern categorization of visual or spatial properties of objects or the environment. A few studies have examined purported differences in reasoning, but these are inherently more difficult to pursue.
这促使现代语言相对论研究考察了假定在某种程度上直接源自基本知觉刺激或基本推理机制的领域的分类。大多数此类实证研究涉及物体或环境的视觉或空间属性的分类。一些研究考察了所谓的推理差异，但这些本质上更难追求。

Object properties and the environment can be experimentally controlled, but processes of reasoning—especially in cross-cultural work—are notoriously difficult to measure while maintaining adequate control of subject variables.
对象属性和环境可以通过实验来控制，但众所周知，推理过程（尤其是在跨文化工作中）很难在保持对主题变量的适当控制的情况下进行测量。

Independent Evidence for Language and Cognition 语言和认知的独立证据

Linguists—especially cognitive linguists—frequently claim that a particular linguistic form represents a particular underlying conceptualization. Obviously, however, any substantial claim of a relationship between language and cognition needs independent assessment of each and a correlation established between the two.
语言学家——尤其是认知语言学家——经常声称一种特定的语言形式代表了一种特定的潜在概念化。然而，显然，任何关于语言和认知之间关系的实质性主张都需要对两者进行独立评估，并在两者之间建立相关性。

Perhaps surprisingly, most work on linguistic relativity spends remarkably little effort demonstrating the linguistic facts prior to seeking the hypothesized cognitive variable. Some of the most severe criticisms of linguistic relativity studies have worried about this insufficient linguistic description. Lucy (1992b) is especially clear in his call for more careful linguistic analysis preparatory to linguistic relativity experimentation.
也许令人惊讶的是，大多数关于语言相对论的工作在寻找假设的认知变量之前，很少花费精力来证明语言事实。对语言相对论研究的一些最严厉的批评对这种语言描述的不足感到担忧。Lucy （1992b） 特别明确地呼吁在语言相对论实验之前进行更仔细的语言分析。

Given the relative accessibility of the linguistic facts compared with the difficulty inferring cognitive behavior from behavioral measures, one could argue that the often minimal characterization of language is of unacceptable sloppiness. More charitably, linguistic facts are typically quite complex, and in an effort to seek a testable hypothesis, a certain amount of simplification becomes inevitable. Unfortunately, there is no standard to use in evaluating the adequacy of a linguistic description for linguistic relativity work other than using the general standards of descriptive linguistics. Descriptive linguistics tends to be as exhaustive as is practically possible and does not necessarily foster the creation of simple hypotheses about linguistic and conceptual categorization. On the other hand, it is difficult to argue that studies in linguistic relativity should hold their linguistic descriptions to a lower standard.
考虑到语言事实的相对可及性，与从行为测量中推断认知行为的难度相比，人们可以争辩说，语言的通常最低限度的描述是不可接受的草率。更仁慈的是，语言事实通常相当复杂，为了寻求一个可检验的假设，一定程度的简化变得不可避免。不幸的是，除了使用描述性语言学的一般标准外，没有标准可用于评估语言相对论工作的语言描述的充分性。描述性语言学往往在实际可能的情况下尽可能详尽，并且不一定促进关于语言和概念分类的简单假设的创建。另一方面，很难说语言相对论的研究应该以较低的标准来要求他们的语言描述。

A related problem is the variability of language. Since many different varieties of language exist depending on communicative and descriptive context, it can be quite misleading to speak of Hopi or English as having a specific characteristic, unless one can argue that this characteristic is true and uniquely true (e.g., there are no competitive constructions) in all contexts. This is, needless to say, a difficult endeavor, but failing to argue the general applicability of the pattern invites the next linguist with expertise in the language to pull forth numerous counterexamples. Studies most closely following the approaches advocated by Whorf have tended to focus on basic grammatical features of the language which are presumed to be fairly context independent. However, this may overlook other linguistic features which may well be relevant to a particular hypothesis of linguistic and conceptual categorization.
一个相关的问题是语言的可变性。由于根据交际和描述性语境存在许多不同种类的语言，因此将霍皮语或英语说成具有特定特征可能会具有相当大的误导性，除非人们可以争辩说这个特征在所有语境中都是真实的并且是唯一的真实（例如，没有竞争性结构）。毋庸置疑，这是一项艰巨的任务，但未能论证该模式的普遍适用性会邀请下一位具有该语言专业知识的语言学家提出许多反例。最密切遵循 Whorf 倡导的方法的研究往往集中在语言的基本语法特征上，这些特征被认为与上下文无关。然而，这可能会忽略其他语言特征，这些特征很可能与语言学和概念分类的特定假设相关。

One way to partially circumvent this problem was followed in Pederson et al. (1998), which seeks to describe language characteristics typically used for, in this case, table-top spatial reference. There is no attempt to include or exclude information on the basis of whether or not the relevant language elements were grammaticized or lexicalized.
Pederson et al. （1998） 采用了一种部分规避此问题的方法，该方法试图描述通常用于桌面空间参考的语言特征。不得尝试根据相关语言元素是否语法化或词汇化来包含或排除信息。

Rather, if the information was present in the language used for a particular context, these linguistic categories are presumed to be available conceptual categories within same or similar contexts. This approach leaves unanswered the question of how broadly the linguistic description (or for that matter the cognitive description as well) applies to the subject population in a variety of other contexts, but it does help ensure that the linguistic description is the most exact match for the cognitive enquiry.
相反，如果信息存在于用于特定上下文的语言中，则这些语言类别被假定为相同或类似的上下文。这种方法没有回答语言描述（或就此而言认知描述）在各种其他上下文中适用于主题群体的广泛程度的问题，但它确实有助于确保语言描述与认知探究最精确匹配。

Subvocalization or What Is Nonlinguistic? Subvocalization 或 What is non-linguistic？

If independent measures are to be taken of both language use and cognitive processes, then great care is necessary to ensure that the behavioral measure for the nonlinguistic cognitive process is not covertly measuring linguistically mediated behavior.
如果要对语言使用和认知过程都采取独立的措施，那么就必须非常小心地确保非语言认知过程的行为测量不是秘密地测量语言介导的行为。

Ideally, the entire cognitive task would be nonlinguistic, but as a practical minimum, the instructions and training for the task must be couched in language which is neutral with respect to the current hypothesis. This is particularly difficult to manage when a language has grammatically obligatory encoding. How do we interpret an effect which may be due to obligatory encoding in the instructions? Is this just an effect of the instructions, or can we interpret this as a general language effect because the instructions only exemplify the continual linguistic context the subjects live within?
理想情况下，整个认知任务将是非语言的，但作为实际最低限度，任务的指示和培训必须以对当前假设中立的语言进行。当一种语言具有语法强制性编码时，这尤其难以管理。我们如何解释可能由于说明中的强制编码而导致的效果？这只是指令的效果，还是我们可以将其解释为一般的语言效应，因为指令只是举例说明了受试者所生活的持续语言背景？

There is a general presumption that instructions to the subjects should be in the subjects’ native language. One might be tempted to use a shared second language as a type of neutral metalanguage for task instructions, but this introduces unexplored variables. If there is the possibility of a cognitive effect from the regular use of one’s native language, then there is also the possibility of an effect from the immediate use of the language of instruction. Additionally, it is more difficult to be certain that all subjects understand the second-language instructions in exactly the same way as the experimenter. Finally, it is unclear how one would guarantee that the language of instruction is neutral with respect to anticipated behavioral outcomes. The very fact that it may mark different categories from the native language may influence the outcome in unpredictable ways.
一般假设对受试者的指导应使用受试者的母语。人们可能会想使用共享的第二语言作为任务指令的一种中性元语言，但这会引入未探索的变量。如果经常使用自己的母语有可能产生认知效果，那么立即使用教学语言也有可能产生效果。此外，更难确定所有受试者都以与实验者完全相同的方式理解第二语言指令。最后，目前尚不清楚如何保证教学语言对于预期的行为结果是中立的。它可能标记与母语不同的类别这一事实可能会以不可预测的方式影响结果。

It is safest therefore to minimize any language-based instruction. General instructions (e.g., “Sit here”) cannot be excluded, but critical information is best presented through neutral examples with minimal accompanying language. Since a dearth of talking makes it more difficult to monitor subject comprehension, it is imperative that the experimental design include a built-in check (e.g., control trials) to ensure that each subject understands the task in the same way—except, of course, for the variation for which the task was designed to test. An account of the effects of subtle changes in instruction with children in explorations with base ten number systems can be found in Saxton and Towse (1998).
因此，最安全的做法是尽量减少任何基于语言的教学。不能排除一般说明（例如，“坐在这里”），但关键信息最好通过中立的示例和最少的伴随语言来呈现。由于缺乏谈话使得监控受试者的理解变得更加困难，因此实验设计必须包括一个内置检查（例如，对照试验），以确保每个受试者都以相同的方式理解任务——当然，任务设计测试的变体除外。在 Saxton 和 Towse （1998） 中可以找到对儿童探索以 10 为基数系统的教学细微变化的影响。

Another concern is that subjects involved in an ostensibly nonlanguage measure actually choose to use language as part of the means of determining their behavior. For example, the subjects may subvocalize their reasoning in a complex problem and then any patterning of behavior along the lines of the linguistic categories is scarcely surprising. In Pederson (1995), I address this concern by arguing that if subjects have distinct levels of linguistic and conceptual representations, they should only choose to approach a nonlinguistic task using linguistic means if there were a sufficiently close match between these two levels with respect to the experiment. In effect, a subject’s unforced decision to rely on linguistic categories can be understood as validation of at least one sort of linguistic relativity hypothesis.
另一个问题是，参与表面上非语言测量的受试者实际上选择使用语言作为决定他们行为的手段的一部分。例如，被试可能会在一个复杂的问题中低声说出他们的推理，然后沿着语言类别的路线的任何行为模式都不足为奇。在 Pederson （1995） 中，我通过论证如果受试者具有不同的语言和概念表征层次来解决这个问题，那么他们应该只选择使用语言手段来处理非语言任务，前提是这两个层次在实验方面足够接近。实际上，主体对依赖语言类别可以理解为至少一种语言相对论假说的验证。

Finding Behavioral Consequences of Linguistically Determined Cognitive Variation 发现语言决定的认知变异的行为后果

Variation in categorization of spatial or perceptual features can be of relatively minor consequence. Whether one thinks of pencils more fundamentally as tools or as long skinny objects has probably little effect on their employment.
空间或感知特征分类的变化可能影响相对较小。无论人们更根本地将铅笔视为工具还是细长的物体，对他们的就业影响可能很小。

The most basic features of humans and their environment are stable across linguistic communities. Gravity pulls in a constant direction, visual perception is roughly comparable, and so forth. If there are cognitive differences across communities with respect to universal features, then these different cognitive patterns must have functional equivalence; that is, different ways of thinking about the same thing must largely allow the same behavioral responses. For example, whether a line of objects is understood as proceeding from left to right or from north to south makes little difference under most circumstances. If the objects are removed and the subject must rebuild them, either understanding of the array will give the same rebuilt line with no effect on accuracy.
人类及其环境的最基本特征在语言社区中是稳定的。重力拉向一个恒定的方向，视觉感知大致相当，等等。如果社区之间在普遍特征方面存在认知差异，那么这些不同的认知模式必须具有功能等效性;也就是说，对同一事物的不同思考方式必须在很大程度上允许相同的行为反应。例如，在大多数情况下，一条对象线是理解为从左到右还是从北到南，几乎没有区别。如果对象被移除并且受试者必须重建它们，则对数组的任何一种理解都将给出相同的重建行，而不会影响准确性。

Accordingly, any experimental task must select an uncommon condition where the principle of functional equivalence fails to hold (see especially Levinson 1996). To continue this example, if the subject is rotated by 90 or 180 degrees before being asked to rebuild an array, the underlying representation (left-right or north-south) should result in a different direction for the rebuilding.
因此，任何实验任务都必须选择功能等价原则不成立的不常见情况（特别参见 Levinson 1996）。继续这个例子，如果主体在被要求重建数组之前旋转了 90 或 180 度，则底层表示（左-右或南北-南）应导致不同的重建方向。

Without a context which effectively disambiguates the possible underlying representations from behavioral responses, a researcher must demonstrate that one subject population has a deficient or improved performance on a task and that this differential performance corresponds to a difference in (default) linguistic encoding. There is a long and sordid history of attributing deficiencies to populations that the investigator does not belong to. Accordingly, it is entirely appropriate that the burden of proof fall particularly hard on the researcher claiming that a studied population is somehow impaired on a given task as a result of their pattern of linguistic encoding. Even if the population is claimed to have an ability which is augmented by linguistic encoding, it is difficult to demonstrate that any difference in ability derives specifically from linguistic differences and not from any of a myriad of environmental (perhaps even nutritional) conditions.
如果没有一个上下文可以有效地将可能的潜在表征与行为反应区分开来，研究人员必须证明一个受试者群体在任务中的表现有缺陷或有所提高，并且这种差异表现对应于（默认）语言编码的差异。将缺陷归因于研究者不属于的人群的历史悠久而肮脏。因此，举证责任特别重地落在研究人员身上是完全适当的，因为研究人员声称由于他们的语言编码模式，研究人群在特定任务上受到了某种程度的损害。即使声称人口具有通过语言编码增强的能力，也很难证明任何能力的差异都源于语言差异，而不是来自无数环境（甚至可能是营养）条件中的任何一种。

Related to this is the concern for the ecological validity of the experimental task. A task may fail to measure subject ability or preferences owing to unfamiliarity of the materials, instructions, or testing context. Further, it is difficult to decide on the basis of just a few experiments which effects can be generalized to hold for nonexperimental contexts—to wit, the complexity of daily life. This is not, however, an argument against experimentation as the inherently interpretive nature of simple observational data ultimately requires experimentally controlled measures.
与此相关的是对实验任务的生态有效性的担忧。由于不熟悉材料、说明或测试环境，任务可能无法衡量受试者的能力或偏好。此外，很难仅根据几个实验来决定哪些效应可以推广到适用于非实验环境——也就是说，日常生活的复杂性。然而，这并不是反对实验作为简单观测数据固有的解释性质，最终需要实验控制的措施。

Types of Experimental Design 实验设计的类型

Various types of experimental tasks have been used for investigating the cognitive side of linguistic relativity. Whatever research methods are used, reliability of the results is far more likely if there is triangulation from a number of observational and experimental methods.
各种类型的实验任务已被用于研究语言相对性的认知方面。无论使用何种研究方法，如果从许多观察和实验方法中进行三角测量，则结果的可靠性要大得多。

Sorting and Triads Tasks 排序和 Triads 任务

Perhaps the most common design used in linguistic relativity studies is a sorting task. Quite simply, the subject is presented with a number of stimuli and is asked to group them into categories. These categories may be ad hoc (subject determined) or preselected (researcher determined). Multiple strategies may be used for the sorting task, giving different sorting results. The most common variant of the sorting task is the triads task which presents a single stimulus to the subjects and asks them to group it with either of two other stimuli or stimuli sets; that is, does stimulus X group better with A or with B? (hence, the term AXB test in some research paradigms). For an archetypal example of a triads task, see Davies et al. (1998).
也许语言相对论研究中最常用的设计是排序任务。很简单，主题被呈现给许多刺激，并被要求将它们分为几类。这些类别可以是临时的（受试者确定的）或预选的（研究人员确定的）。排序任务可以使用多种策略，从而给出不同的排序结果。排序任务最常见的变体是三元组任务，它向受试者呈现一个刺激，并要求他们将其与其他两个刺激或刺激集中的任何一个分组;也就是说，刺激 X 组与 A 组还是与 B 组更好？（因此，在一些研究范式中称为 AXB 检验）。有关三元组任务的典型示例，请参见 Davies et al. （1998）。

This task is easy to administer as long as the stimuli are reasonably tangible, interpretable, and able to be considered in a nearly simultaneous manner. One consideration of sorting designs is that subjects often report awareness of multiple strategies which might be employed. Of course, the researcher cannot indicate which is a preferred strategy and can only instruct the subject to sort according to “first impression,” “whatever seems most natural,” or other such instructions. The interpretation of these instructions may add an uncontrolled variable. Further, sorting tasks inherently invite the subjects to respond according to their beliefs about the researcher’s expectations, which may not in fact be what would be the normal sorting decision outside of this task.
只要刺激是合理的有形的、可解释的，并且能够以几乎同时的方式考虑，这项任务就很容易管理。对设计进行排序的一个考虑因素是，受试者经常报告对可能采用的多种策略的认识。当然，研究人员无法表明哪个是首选策略，只能指示受试者根据 “第一印象”、“任何看起来最自然的 ”或其他类似的指令进行排序。对这些指令的解释可能会添加一个不受控制的变量。此外，排序任务本质上会邀请受试者根据他们对研究人员期望的信念来做出回应，这实际上可能不是此任务之外的正常排序决策。

Discrimination Tasks 判别任务

Other tasks seek to find different discriminations across populations. As a practical consequence, differences usually boil down to one population making finer or more distinctions than another population; see, for example, much of the work on color discrimination and linguistic labeling discussed in the debates in Hardin and Maffi (1997). However, it is at least theoretically possible that one population might be more sensitive to certain features at the expense of other features and that a contrasting population would show the reverse pattern.
其他任务寻求发现不同人群的不同歧视。实际上，差异通常归结为一个总体比另一个总体做出更精细或更多的区分;例如，参见 Hardin 和 Maffi （1997） 的辩论中讨论的许多关于颜色区分和语言标签的工作。但是，至少在理论上，一个总体可能对某些特征更敏感，而牺牲其他特征，并且对比的总体将显示相反的模式。

A limitation of discrimination tasks is that for them to be interpretable, one must be able to assume that beyond the independent variable of different linguistic systems, all subjects brought the same degree of attention, general task satisfying abilities, and so on to the experimental task. Should, for example, one population be less likely to be attentionally engaged, then this reduces the possibility of isolating a linguistic effect on cognition.
辨别任务的一个局限性是，要使它们可解释，必须能够假设除了不同语言系统的自变量之外，所有主体都带来了相同程度的关注，一般任务满足能力，等等继续实验任务。例如，如果一个人群不太可能集中注意力，那么这就会降低孤立语言对认知影响的可能性。

Problem Solving Tasks 问题解决任务

Problem solving tasks are readily used in many types of research. In linguistic relativity studies, they are typically of two design types: difficult solution or alternative solution.
问题解决任务很容易用于许多类型的研究。在语言相对论研究中，它们通常有两种设计类型：困难解或替代解。

The first type involves a task which provides some difficulty in finding the solution. Some subjects are anticipated to be better or worse than others at solving the task. As with reduced discrimination just discussed, it is extremely difficult to argue that it is specifically the categories of language which lead to differential performance. The counterfactual reasoning task employed by Bloom (1981) was such a task, and the difficulty in interpreting its results was part of much of the controversy surrounding that work.
第一种类型涉及一个任务，该任务在寻找解决方案时提供了一些困难。预计某些主题在解决任务方面会比其他主题更好或更差。与刚才讨论的减少歧视一样，很难说是语言的特定类别导致了不同的表现。Bloom （1981） 采用的反事实推理任务就是这样一项任务，而解释其结果的困难是围绕该工作的大部分争议的一部分。

The second type of problem solving tasks allow for alternative solutions each of which should be indicative of a different underlying representation. As such, these are similar to triads tasks in that they allow each subject to find the most “natural” solution for them (at least within the given experimental context). For example, in Pederson (1995) I describe a transitivity task in which subjects know how each of two objects are spatially related to a third object. They must then decide which side of the second object the first/test object must be placed. Depending on how these relationships are encoded, the test object will be placed on a different side of the second object. Like triads tasks, there is the potential problem that the subjects may be aware of the possibility of multiple solutions, prompting responses derived from any number of uncontrolled factors.
第二种类型的问题解决任务允许替代解决方案，每种解决方案都应该表示不同的基本表示。因此，这些类似于三元组任务，因为它们允许每个受试者找到最适合他们的“自然”解决方案（至少在给定的实验环境中）。例如，在 Pederson （1995） 中，我描述了一个传递性任务，其中主体知道两个对象中的每一个在空间上是如何与第三个对象相关联的。然后，他们必须决定必须放置第一个/测试对象的第二个对象的哪一侧。根据这些关系的编码方式，测试对象将被放置在第二个对象的不同侧。与三联征任务一样，存在一个潜在的问题，即被试可能意识到多种解决方案的可能性，从而促使从任意数量的不受控制的因素中得出反应。

Embedded Tasks 嵌入式任务

Within psychological research, there is a common solution to the problem of subject awareness of multiple possible responses. Namely, the actual measure of the task is embedded within another task for which the subject is more consciously aware. For example, subjects may be asked to respond as to whether a figure is masculine or feminine, but the researcher is really measuring the distribution of attention to the figures. While the embedded task may still be influenced by subject expectations, it is an indirect and presumably nonreflected influence. As such, one can argue that the responses measured by the embedded task are more likely to correspond to default behaviors used outside of this exact experimental context. The “Animals in a Row” task discussed in Pederson et al. (1998) was one such task, where subjects understood the task as one to recreate a sequence of toy animals, but the critical dependent measure was the direction the animals were facing when subjects placed them on the table-top before them.
在心理学研究中，对于主体对多种可能反应的意识问题，有一个常见的解决方案。也就是说，任务的实际度量嵌入在主体更有意识地意识到的另一个任务中。例如，可能会要求受试者回答一个人物是男性还是女性，但研究人员实际上是在测量对人物的注意力分布。虽然嵌入式任务可能仍会受到受试者期望的影响，但这是一种间接的、可能未反映的影响。因此，可以争辩说，由嵌入式任务测量的响应更有可能对应于在此确切实验上下文之外使用的默认行为。Pederson et al. （1998） 中讨论的“Animals in a Row”任务就是这样一项任务，其中被试将任务理解为重建一系列玩具动物的任务，但关键的依赖性测量是当被试将动物放在它们面前的桌面上时动物所面对的方向。

Variable Responses 变量响应

The researcher must also be careful in coding fixed response types from the subjects. It may be that subject preference is for a response type not allowed by the forced choice, and when pigeonholed into a different response type, subjects may not be responding in a manner reflecting their typical underlying representations. Also, certain patterns (or lack of patterns) of responses may actually indicate a preference for a response type not anticipated by the experimental design. For example, in the “Animals in a Row” task just discussed, some populations—and not others—appear on the scoring sheets as preserving the orientation of the original stimuli roughly half the time. On closer inspection, many of these subjects were actually entirely consistent in giving the animals the same orientation (e.g., always facing left) regardless of the original orientation of the stimuli. Since the task appeared to be about the order and not the orientation of the animals, this is a perfectly reasonable response. Unfortunately, there was no hypothesis anticipating this response, and no claims could be made as to why some subjects and not others gave this response pattern.
研究人员在对受试者的固定响应类型进行编码时也必须小心。可能是主体偏好是强制选择不允许的响应类型，当被归类为不同的响应类型时，主体可能不会以反映其典型潜在表征的方式进行响应。此外，某些响应模式（或缺乏模式）实际上可能表明对实验设计未预料到的响应类型的偏好。例如，在刚刚讨论的 “Animals in a Row” 任务中，一些种群（而不是其他种群）在评分表上显示，大约有一半的时间保持了原始刺激的方向。仔细观察，这些受试者中的许多实际上在给动物相同的方向（例如，总是面向左侧）方面是完全一致的，而不管刺激的原始方向如何。由于任务似乎是关于动物的顺序而不是方向，因此这是一个完全合理的回答。不幸的是，没有假设预测这种反应，也无法断言为什么一些受试者而不是其他受试者给出了这种反应模式。

Controlling Extraneous Variables 控制无关变量

Work such as Kay and Kempton (1984) demonstrates that the effects of native language on nonlinguistic categorization tasks can vary with even slightly varied task demands. This is commonly interpreted as an indication that “relativity effects” are “weak.” A more conservative interpretation is that there are many factors (of undetermined “strength”) which can effect results and that language may be only one of many possible factors. The exact total effect of language will depend on what other nonlinguistic factors are in effect. This requires that an experimental design for linguistic relativity effects carefully control all foreseeable linguistic and nonlinguistic variables.
Kay 和 Kempton （1984） 等工作表明，母语对非语言分类任务的影响会随着任务需求的变化而变化。这通常被解释为“相对论效应”是“弱”的。更保守的解释是，有许多因素（未确定的“强度”）会影响结果，而语言可能只是许多可能因素之一。语言的确切总影响将取决于其他哪些非语言因素在起作用。这就要求语言相对论效应的实验设计仔细控制所有可预见的语言和非语言变量。

Linguistic Variables 语言变量

Since they are most directly related to the tested hypothesis, language variables are perhaps the most critical to control in one’s design.
由于语言变量与检验的假设最直接相关，因此在设计中控制语言变量可能是最关键的。

Of fundamental importance is that one must be certain that the base language of the subjects is consistent with respect to whatever features have led to the specific hypothesis. This may seem trivial, but dialectal (and even idiolectal) variation may well have the effect that some speakers do not share certain critical linguistic features even though they ostensibly speak the same language.
最根本的是，必须确定受试者的基本语言与导致特定假设的任何特征是一致的。这似乎微不足道，但方言（甚至惯用语）的变化很可能会产生这样一种效果，即一些说话者即使表面上说同一种语言，也不具有某些关键的语言特征。

Perhaps even more problematic is the issue of bilingualism. Unless all subjects are totally monolingual, this is a potential problem for the design. Generally, linguistic relativity tests presume that one’s “native” language capacity is the most relevant, but this cannot preclude effects from other known languages. Age of acquisition of second languages may also vary widely; there is certainly no established model of the effects of age of acquisition on nonlinguistic category formation.
也许更成问题的是双语问题。除非所有受试者都完全是单语的，否则这是设计的潜在问题。一般来说，语言相对论测试假定一个人的 “母语” 语言能力是最相关的，但这不能排除其他已知语言的影响。学习第二语言的年龄也可能有很大差异;当然，没有关于习得年龄对非语言类别形成影响的既定模型。

If nonnative categories have been learned, how can we assume that they are not also brought to bear on the experimental task—clouding the results in unpredictable ways? This is perhaps most insidious when the language of instruction differs from the native language. Suitably, then, serious work in linguistic relativity needs to use the native language for instruction, but even this is not necessarily a straightforward task.
如果已经学习了非原生类别，我们怎么能假设它们没有也被用于实验任务——以不可预测的方式使结果蒙上阴影？当教学语言与母语不同时，这可能是最阴险的。因此，语言相对论的严肃工作需要使用母语进行教学，但即使这样也不一定是一项简单的任务。

For example, how does one ensure that instructions to multiple populations are both exactly and suitably translated?
例如，如何确保对多个群体的指令既准确又适当地翻译？

How to Control for Exact Translations in a Comparative Work? 如何控制比较作品中的精确翻译？

Work in linguistic relativity has had an impact in translation theory. Indeed, belief in a sufficiently strong model of insurmountable language differences would suggest that complete translations would be difficult to attain. House (2000) presents an overview of the challenges of translation and suggests a solution to the problem of linguistic relativity and translation. Chafe (2000) also discusses translation issues with respect to linguistic relativity, and Slobin (1991, 1996) uses translations in his discussions of how languages most suitably express motion events (see the section on space, below). The work of Bloom and his critics (see the discussion below) is particularly relevant for this issue because the ability to translate the experimental task from English to Chinese was central to his research question of counterfactual reasoning. Indeed, one might be skeptical of any attempt to investigate linguistic relativity in which the nonlinguistic experimental design is essentially a language-based task.
语言相对论的工作对翻译理论产生了影响。事实上，相信一个足够强大的不可克服的语言差异模型将表明，完整的翻译将很难实现。House （2000） 概述了翻译的挑战，并提出了语言相对性和翻译问题的解决方案。Chafe （2000） 还讨论了语言相对论的翻译问题，而 Slobin （1991， 1996） 在讨论语言如何最适合表达运动事件时使用翻译（参见下面的空间部分）。布鲁姆和他的批评者的工作（见下面的讨论）与这个问题特别相关，因为将实验任务从英文翻译成中文的能力是他反事实推理研究问题的核心。事实上，人们可能会对任何研究语言相对性的尝试持怀疑态度，其中非语言实验设计本质上是一项基于语言的任务。

Of immediate practical concern is the translation of instructions for any research instrument itself. It is difficult enough to be confident that two subjects speaking the same language have the same understanding of a task’s instructions. How, then, can the researcher be confident that translations of instructions are understood identically by speakers of different languages especially in the context of an experiment which seeks to confirm that speakers of these different languages in fact do understand the world in different ways?
当务之急是任何研究工具本身的说明翻译。要确信说同一种语言的两个受试者对任务的指示有相同的理解已经够困难的了。那么，研究人员如何确信不同语言的使用者对指令的翻译理解相同，尤其是在试图确认这些不同语言的使用者实际上以不同的方式理解世界的实验中呢？

The most obvious solution is to avoid linguistic instruction entirely. This does not remove the possibility that subjects understand the task differently, but it does ensure that any different understanding is not the direct result of immediate linguistic context. However, there are severe restrictions on what can be reliably and efficiently instructed without language. Understandably, then, most research relies on language-based instruction. In such cases, one must seek to phrase instructions in such a way that one sample is not more influenced by the particular choice of phrasing than the other sample.
最明显的解决方案是完全避免语言教学。这并不能消除被试对任务的不同理解的可能性，但它确实确保了任何不同的理解都不是直接语言背景的直接结果。但是，在没有语言的情况下可以可靠和有效地指导的内容存在严重限制。因此，可以理解的是，大多数研究都依赖于基于语言的教学。在这种情况下，必须设法以这样一种方式来表达说明，即一个样本不会比另一个样本更受特定措辞选择的影响。

To invent an example, imagine we are interested in the effect of evidential marking (linguistic markings which indicate how information is known to the speaker) on the salience of sources of even nonlinguistic information to speakers of a language which obligatorily marks evidentiality. This population would contrast with speakers of a language which essentially lacks routine marking. How, then, might we word our instructions? Do we use expressions typical for each language such that one set of instructions contains evidential marking and the other not? Alternatively, do we provide evidential information for both languages? In the case of the language which does not typically mark evidentials, providing this information would obviously be more “marked” in usage than for the other language. This greater markedness of the information might make the evidential information more salient for those subjects who normally do not concern themselves with any language expression of evidentiality, which in turn could make issues of evidentiality more salient than they would be under average conditions—countering the entire design of the experiment!
举个例子，想象一下我们对证据标记（语言标记，表明说话者如何知道信息）对非语言信息来源的显著性的影响感兴趣，这种语言必须标记证据性。这个人群与基本上缺乏常规标记的语言的使用者形成鲜明对比。那么，我们应该如何措辞我们的指示呢？我们是否使用每种语言的典型表达式，以便一组指令包含证据标记而另一组不包含？或者，我们提供两种语言的证据信息？在通常不标记证据的语言的情况下，提供此信息显然比另一种语言在使用上更“标记”。对于那些通常不关心任何证据性语言表达的受试者来说，这种更大的信息标记性可能会使证据信息更加突出，这反过来又可能使证据性问题比在平均条件下更加突出——这与实验的整个设计背道而驰！

Recent Language Use 最近的语言使用

Another potential language factor affecting results might be preexperimental, but recent, language use. If the language of instruction can influence results, could not language use immediately prior to instruction also influence the results? Indeed, if we assume that linguistic categories prime access to parallel nonlinguistic categories, then how do we control for language use outside of the experimental setting? On the one hand, one could argue that language use outside of the experiment is exactly the independent variable under consideration, and this is controlled simply through subject selection. On the other hand, if a language has multiple ways of representing categories, what is the potential effect if a subject has most recently been using one of the less typical linguistic categories for his or her language? Once again, the cleanest solution to this risk is to test categories for which there is minimal linguistic variation within each of the examined languages.³
影响结果的另一个潜在语言因素可能是实验前但最近的语言使用。如果教学语言可以影响结果，那么在教学之前使用语言难道不能也影响结果吗？事实上，如果我们假设语言类别是通往平行非语言类别的主要途径，那么我们如何控制实验环境之外的语言使用呢？一方面，人们可以争辩说，实验之外的语言使用恰恰是正在考虑的自变量，而这可以通过受试者选择进行控制。另一方面，如果一种语言有多种表示类别的方式，那么如果受试者最近一直在使用不太典型的语言类别之一来表示他或她的语言，那么潜在影响是什么？同样，应对这种风险的最干净解决方案是测试每种检查语言中语言差异最小的类别。

Conversation during Task 任务期间的对话

The last of the language variables to consider is language use during the experiment itself. Lucy and Shwedder (1988) found that forbidding subjects to have conversations between exposure and recall in a memory task allowed a greater recall of focal color terms than of nonfocal color terms (see the subsection on color below). Subjects who had (unrelated) conversations remembered focal and nonfocal colors about equally well.
最后一个要考虑的语言变量是实验本身期间的语言使用。Lucy 和 Shwedder （1988） 发现，禁止被试在记忆任务中进行暴露和回忆之间的对话，可以比非焦点颜色术语更好地回忆起焦点颜色术语（参见下面关于颜色的小节）。进行（无关）对话的受试者对焦点和非焦点颜色的记忆大致相同。

While Lucy and Shwedder do not provide a model for why this might be the case, it clearly suggests that even incidental language use during and perhaps around a task can have significant influences on performance. Other work (see Gennari et al. 2002) has suggested that even in cases where there might normally be no particular relation between habitual language use and performance on a nonlinguistic task, language used during exposure or memorization to stimuli can lead to nonlinguistic responses in alignment with language use.
虽然 Lucy 和 Shwedder 没有提供一个模型来说明为什么会这样，但它清楚地表明，即使是在任务期间和任务周围偶然使用语言也会对性能产生重大影响。其他工作（参见 Gennari 等人，2002 年）表明，即使在习惯性语言使用与非语言任务的表现之间通常没有特定关系的情况下，在暴露或记忆刺激期间使用的语言也会导致与语言使用一致的非语言反应。

Nonlinguistic Subject Variables 非语言主题变量

Even more heterogonous to a subject sample than the linguistic variables are the cultural, educational, and other experiential variables. Subject questionnaires are the usual ways to try to control these variables in post hoc analysis, but this control is limited by the foresight to collect adequate information.
与语言变量相比，与主题样本相比，文化、教育和其他经验变量的异质性更强。受试者问卷是尝试在事后分析中控制这些变量的常用方法，但这种控制受到远见的限制，无法收集足够的信息。

One of the more obvious variables to control or record is the amount of schooling and literacy. Unfortunately, while schooling is easily represented on an ordinal scale (first to postsecondary grades), there is little guarantee that this represents the same education especially across, but even within, two population samples. For example, literacy is also not as simple a variable as it might appear. Subjects may be literate in different languages (and scripts) and may have very different literacy practices. Coding subjects who only read the Bible in their nonnative language and other subjects who read a variety of materials in their native language as both simply “literate” clearly glosses over potentially significant differences in experience.
需要控制或记录的更明显的变量之一是学校教育和识字率。不幸的是，虽然学校教育很容易用序数量表（从第一到高等教育年级）来表示，但很难保证这代表了相同的教育，尤其是在两个人口样本中，但即使在两个人口样本中也是如此。例如，识字率也并不像看起来那么简单。受试者可能使用不同的语言（和脚本）识字，并且可能具有非常不同的识字实践。只用非母语阅读圣经的被试，以及用母语阅读各种材料的其他被试都只是简单地 “识字” ，这显然掩盖了潜在的显著经验差异。

Expertise may also vary considerably across samples. One of the most thorny obstacles in cross-cultural psychology is comparing testing results across two populations, one of which habitually engages with experiment-like settings and the other of which does not. This may have effects beyond simple difficulty in performance, but may affect the way in which subjects understand instructions, second-guess the intentions of the experimenter, and so on.⁴
不同样品的专业知识也可能有很大差异。跨文化心理学中最棘手的障碍之一是比较两个人群的测试结果，其中一个人群习惯性地参与类似实验的环境，而另一个人群则不然。这可能产生的影响超出了简单的表演难度，但可能会影响受试者理解指令、事后猜测实验者意图的方式，等等。

Sex or gender, age, and the more physiologically based experiences are also difficult to compare. Being a woman in different societies means very different daily experiences beyond the variables of amount of schooling and the like. To what extent are subjects in their thirties the same across two populations. In one society but not another, a 35-year- old might typically be a grandparent in declining health with uncorrected vision or hearing loss.
性别或性别、年龄以及更基于生理的经历也很难比较。作为不同社会中的女性，除了受教育程度等变量之外，意味着非常不同的日常经历。30 多岁的受试者在两个人群中的相同程度如何。在一个社会而不是另一个社会中，35 岁的人通常是健康状况下降、视力未矫正或听力损失的祖父母。

Testing Environment 测试环境

Lastly, variation in the testing environment is often difficult to control. The more broadly cross-cultural the samplings, the greater the dependence on local conditions. One might think of the ideal as an identical laboratory setup for each population sampled. However, since different subjects might react differently within such an environment, this is not necessarily a panacea (in addition to the obvious practical difficulty in implementation).
最后，测试环境的变化通常难以控制。抽样的跨文化范围越广，对当地条件的依赖性就越大。人们可能会认为理想的是每个采样人群的实验室设置相同。然而，由于不同的主体在这样的环境中可能会有不同的反应，这不一定是万能的（除了实施中明显的实际困难）。

The best approach is to carefully examine the environmental features needed for the task at hand. If an experiment is about color categorization, lighting obviously needs to be controlled; if an experiment is about spatial arrays, adjacent landmarks and handedness need to be controlled; and so on. For example, in the basic experiment reported in Pederson et al. (1998), the use of table tops was not considered essential for tasks testing “table-top space,” but the use of two delimited testing surfaces and the geometrical relationship and distances between these surfaces was critical to the design. This allowed the individual experimenters to set up tables or mats on the ground/floor as was more appropriate for the broader material culture.⁵
最好的方法是仔细检查手头任务所需的环境特征。如果实验是关于颜色分类的，那么显然需要控制照明;如果实验是关于空间阵列的，则需要控制相邻的地标和惯用手;等等。例如，在 Pederson 等人 （1998） 报道的基本实验中，使用桌面对于测试“桌面空间”的任务并不被认为是必不可少的，但使用两个划定的测试表面以及这些表面之间的几何关系和距离对于设计至关重要。这允许个体实验者在地面/地板上设置桌子或垫子，这更适合更广泛的物质文化。

Establishing Causal Directionality 建立因果方向性

Once a correlation between a language pattern and a behavioral response has been experimentally established, the problem of establishing causal directionality remains. While this is a problem for any correlational design, it is particularly vexing for studies of linguistic relativity. Quite simply, it is difficult to rule out the possibility that subjects habitually speak the way they do as a consequence of their culture (and environment) as opposed to the possibility that the culture thinks the way it does because of their language. For discussions of the role of culture vis-à-vis language in linguistic relativity studies, see Bickel (2000), Enfield (2000), and the fairly standard reference of Hanks (1990).
一旦通过实验建立了语言模式和行为反应之间的相关性，建立因果方向性的问题就仍然存在。虽然这对任何相关设计来说都是一个问题，但对于语言相对论的研究来说尤其令人烦恼。很简单，很难排除主体因其文化（和环境）而习惯性地以他们的方式说话的可能性，而不是文化因其语言而以这种方式思考的可能性。关于语言相对论研究中文化相对于语言的作用的讨论，参见 Bickel （2000）、Enfield （2000） 和 Hanks （1990） 的相当标准的参考资料。

In specific response to work on spatial cognition, Li and Gleitman (2002) argue that behavioral response patterns are not causally attributable to community language preferences, but rather that language use reflects cultural practice and concerns, for example, the many words for snow used by skiers—however, see also Levinson et al. (2002) for an extensive response. To the extent that the language features under investigation are roughly as changeable as the culture, this is certainly a likely possibility. On the other hand, when the language features are essentially fossilized in the grammatical system, they cannot be understood as the consequences of current cultural conditions. If anything, the pattern of grammaticized distinctions reflects the fossilized conceptualizations of one’s ancestors.
在对空间认知工作的具体回应中，Li 和 Gleitman （2002） 认为，行为反应模式并非因果归因于社区语言偏好，而是语言使用反映了文化习俗和关注点，例如，滑雪者使用的许多词语都表示雪——然而，另见 Levinson et al. （2002） 的广泛回应。在某种程度上，所研究的语言特征与文化大致一样多变，这当然是一种可能性。另一方面，当语言特征在语法系统中基本上化为石化时，它们就不能被理解为当前文化条件的结果。如果有的话，语法化区分的模式反映了一个人的祖先的化石概念化。

Work within Cognitive Linguistics 在认知语言学领域工作

Some of the earliest cognitive linguistic work (1970s) explicitly tying grammatical structure to cognition is found in studies by Talmy (see especially Talmy 1977, 1978). This work largely focuses on the universal (or at least broadly found) patterns of language and has been revised and expanded in Talmy (2000a, 2000b). Talmy treats language as one of many “cognitive systems” which has the “set of grammatically specified notions [constitute] the fundamental conceptual structuring system of language.… Thus, grammar broadly conceived, is the determinant of conceptual structure within one cognitive system, language” (2000a: 21–22). However, the relationship between this cognitive system (language) and others (i.e., nonlinguistic cognition) is relatively unspecified in his work. Structural commonalities between the various cognitive systems are suggested—most specifically between visual perception and language—but, importantly, Talmy avoids claims that there is any causal effect from linguistic categories to nonlinguistic categories.⁶
一些最早的认知语言学著作（1970 年代）明确地将语法结构与认知联系起来，可以在 Talmy 的研究中找到（特别参见 Talmy 1977,1978）。这项工作主要集中在语言的普遍（或至少是广泛发现的）模式上，并在 Talmy （2000a， 2000b） 中进行了修订和扩展。Talmy 将语言视为众多“认知系统”之一，它拥有“一组语法上指定的概念 [构成] 语言的基本概念结构系统…因此，广义上的语法是一个认知系统——语言——概念结构的决定因素“（2000a：21-22）。然而，这种认知系统（语言）与其他认知系统（即非语言认知）之间的关系在他的工作中相对没有明确。本文指出了各种认知系统之间的结构共性——最具体地说是视觉感知和语言之间——但重要的是，Talmy 避免了从语言类别到非语言类别存在任何因果效应的说法。

Langacker is bolder in the relationship between grammar and cognition: in Cognitive Grammar’s “view of linguistic semantics. Meaning is equated with conceptualization (in the broadest sense)” (Langacker 1987: 55). Langacker (1991)
Langacker 在语法和认知之间的关系方面更大胆：在认知 Grammar 的“语言语义观。意义等同于概念化（在最广泛的意义上）“（Langacker 1987：55）。兰加克 （1991）

further argues that the cognitive models underlying clause structure have prototypes which are rooted in (variable) cultural understanding. To the extent that we find interesting cross-linguistic variation, we can see the work of Talmy and Langacker as sources for linguistic relativity hypotheses to test—as, for example, Slobin (1996, 2000) has begun with the motion event typology of Talmy (1985).
进一步论证了从句结构背后的认知模型具有植根于（可变的）文化理解的原型。在我们发现的范围内有趣的跨语言变化，我们可以将 Talmy 和 Langacker 的工作视为要检验的语言相对论假设的来源——例如，Slobin （1996， 2000） 已经开始于 Talmy （1985） 的运动事件类型学。

As mentioned above, Lakoff (1987: chapter 18) directly addresses linguistic relativity. Within this chapter on linguistic relativity, there is a discussion of different ways in which two cross-linguistic systems might be “commensurate.” They might be translatable, understandable (though this is vaguely defined), commensurate in usage, share the same framing, and/or use the same organization of the various underlying concepts. In addition to a summary of the now classic Kay and Kempton (1984), there is an elaborate extension to linguistic relativity of semantics work in Mixtec and English by Brugman (1981) and Brugman and Macaulay (1986).
如上所述，Lakoff （1987： 第 18 章） 直接解决了语言相对论。在关于语言相对性的这一章中，讨论了两个跨语言系统可能“相称”的不同方式。它们可能是可翻译的、可理解的（尽管定义含糊不清）、用途相称、共享相同的框架和/或使用相同的各种基本概念的组织。除了对现在经典的 Kay 和 Kempton （1984） 的总结外，Brugman （1981） 和 Brugman 和 Macaulay （1986） 对 Mixtec 和英语语义工作的语言相对性进行了详尽的扩展。

Metaphor is an obvious area of interest to many cognitive linguists (see Grady, this volume, chapter 8, and references therein). The nature of metaphor is to consider conceptualizations in terms of other linguistically expressed domains. To the extent that source domains can vary cross-linguistically or cross-culturally (or different features of these source domains are mapped), this is an area ripe for linguistic relativity studies. To date, however, linguistic relativity studies—that is to say, work with behavioral data—have largely limited themselves to the study of elemental and literal language. One exception to this is linguistic relativity research on time, which almost necessarily is metaphorically expressed (see section 5.6 below).
隐喻显然是许多认知语言学家感兴趣的一个领域（参见 Grady，本卷，第 8 章和其中的参考文献）。隐喻的本质是根据其他语言表达的领域来考虑概念化。在某种程度上，源域可以在跨语言或跨文化上有所不同（或者这些源域的不同特征被映射），这是一个成熟的语言相对论研究领域。然而，迄今为止，语言相对论研究——也就是说，处理行为数据——在很大程度上仅限于对基本语言和文字语言的研究。一个例外是关于时间的语言相对论研究，它几乎必然是隐喻性的表达（见下文 5.6 节）。

Research by Topic Area 按主题领域进行研究

This section gives a brief overview of modern linguistic relativity work organized by topic area. While some comments are given, it is impossible in this space to summarize the findings of the entire body of work. Further, the empirical details of each study are essential to critical evaluation of the findings, so the original sources must be consulted.
本节简要概述了按主题领域组织的现代语言相对论工作。虽然给出了一些评论，但在这个空间里不可能总结整个工作的结果。此外，每项研究的实证细节对于对研究结果的批判性评估至关重要，因此必须参考原始来源。

Color 颜色

Perhaps the greatest debate in linguistic relativity has been in the domain of color. Historically, linguists and anthropologists had been struck by the seemingly boundless diversity in color nomenclature. Given the obvious biological underpinnings of color perception, this made “color” a domain of choice to seek language-specific effects overriding biological prerequisites.
也许语言相对论中最大的争论是在颜色领域。从历史上看，语言学家和人类学家对颜色命名法看似无限的多样性感到震惊。鉴于颜色感知的明显生物学基础，这使得 “颜色 ”成为寻求语言特异性效果的选择领域，而不是生物学先决条件。

Lenneberg and Roberts (1956) is one of the earliest attempts to empirically test linguistic relativity, and as such this study spends considerable space defining the intellectual concerns before it reports on a relatively small study involving Zuni versus English color categorization. Brown and Lenneberg (1958) report on various work and develop the notion of codability: that is, the use of language as a way to more efficient coding of categories for the purposes not only of communication, but also of augmenting personal memory.
Lenneberg 和 Roberts （1956） 是最早尝试实证检验语言相对论的尝试之一，因此，本研究在报告一项涉及祖尼语与英语颜色分类的相对较小的研究之前，花费了相当大的篇幅来定义智力问题。Brown 和 Lenneberg （1958） 报告了各种工作和发展可编码性的概念：也就是说，使用语言作为一种更有效的类别编码的方式，不仅是为了交流，也是为了增强个人记忆。

Berlin and Kay (1969) and the updated methodology in Kay and McDaniel (1978) have laid the groundwork of considerable research in color terminology. Central to the method is the use of Munsell color chips as a reference standard which can be carried to various field sites. Universal patterns were found to establish a typology of different color systems which appeared to be built out of a small set of universal principles. Research continues to be robust in this area and the interested reader may wish to consult the conference proceedings published as Hardin and Maffi (1997) for more current perspectives.
Berlin 和 Kay （1969） 以及 Kay 和 McDaniel （1978） 的更新方法为色彩术语的大量研究奠定了基础。该方法的核心是使用 Munsell 色卡作为参考标准品，可以携带到各个现场。发现通用模式建立了不同颜色系统的类型学，这些颜色系统似乎是由一小套通用原则构建的。该领域的研究仍然很稳健，感兴趣的读者可能希望查阅 Hardin 和 Maffi （1997） 出版的会议论文集，以获得更多最新的观点。

Eleanor Rosch (under her previous name: Heider 1971, 1972) found that focal colors (or Hering primaries from Hering’s theory of light and color, see Hering 1964) were better remembered even by young children and were also more perceptually salient for them. Further, Heider and Olivier (1972) and Rosch (1973) found that, even for members of a community (the Dani of Papua New Guinea) who had little color terminology at all, certain color examples were better remembered. She argues that these “natural” categories are generally favored in human learning and cognition. This work is often taken as support for universals of color perception, though since the Dani had no linguistic categories to sway them away from biologically primary colors, this cannot be taken as evidence against a potential linguistic influence on color perception.
埃莉诺·罗施（Eleanor Rosch）（用她的前名：Heider 1971,1972）发现焦点色（或赫林光和色理论中的赫林原色，见赫林 1964）甚至被年幼的孩子更好地记住，对他们来说也更明显。此外，Heider 和 Olivier （1972） 以及 Rosch （1973） 发现，即使对于一个社区的成员（巴布亚新几内亚的 Dani）来说，他们根本没有多少颜色术语，某些颜色的例子也更容易记住。她认为，这些 “自然 ”类别在人类学习和认知中通常受到青睐。这项工作通常被视为对颜色感知普遍性的支持，尽管由于 Dani 没有语言类别来使他们远离生物原色，这不能被视为反对语言对颜色感知的潜在影响的证据。

The effects of language on color categorization could be seen in Kay and Kempton (1984), but any effects of language-specific color terms only surfaced under specific conditions, and the effects were not as robust as earlier researchers had hoped. Various proposals have been made to revise the Berlin and Kay approach in ways which accommodate linguistic relativity effects within a basically universally constrained system. Most notable of these is Vantage Theory, which seeks to explain multiple points of view—even within the putative universals of color perception—and how points of view may be linguistically mediated; see especially MacLaury (1991, 1995, 2000).
语言对颜色分类的影响可以在 Kay 和 Kempton （1984） 中看到，但语言特定颜色术语的任何影响仅在特定条件下出现，并且效果并不像早期研究人员希望的那样强大。已经提出了各种建议来修改 Berlin 和 Kay 方法，以便在一个基本上普遍约束的系统内容纳语言相对性效应。其中最值得注意的是 Vantage 理论，它试图解释多种观点——即使在色彩感知的假定普遍性中——以及观点如何在语言上被中介;特别参见 MacLaury （1991， 1995， 2000）。

Work by Davies and colleagues has also expanded upon the work of Kay and Kempton (1984) by examining a variety of linguistic systems for denoting colors. They then test participants from these speech communities using various categorization tasks. For Turkish, see Oezgen and Davies (1998); for Setswana, English, and Russian, see Davies (1998), Davies and Corbett (1997), and Davies et al. (1998); see also Corbett and Davies (1997) for a discussion of method in language sampling for color terminology.
Davies 及其同事的工作还扩展了 Kay 和 Kempton （1984） 的工作，研究了各种用于表示颜色的语言系统。然后，他们使用各种分类任务测试来自这些语音社区的参与者。关于土耳其语，参见 Oezgen 和 Davies （1998）;关于塞茨瓦纳语、英语和俄语，参见 Davies （1998）、Davies 和 Corbett （1997） 以及 Davies 等人 （1998）;另请参阅 Corbett 和 Davies （1997） 对颜色术语的语言采样方法的讨论。

Especially within anthropology, there has been concern about the fundamental adequacy of the empirical method followed by Berlin and Kay (and later modifications).
特别是在人类学中，人们一直担心 Berlin 和 Kay 所遵循的实证方法（以及后来的修改）的基本充分性。

Jameson and DʼAndrade (1997) address the adequacy of the theory of color perception inherent in the use of the Munsell color system. Lucy (1997b) criticizes most work on color terminology as insufficiently descriptive of the actual linguistic properties of the unclear what the effects may be of forcing reference with these terms into the Munsell system.
Jameson 和 DʼAndrade （1997） 讨论了使用 Munsell 色彩系统所固有的颜色感知理论的充分性。Lucy （1997b） 批评大多数关于颜色术语的工作没有充分描述。目前尚不清楚强制使用这些术语的引用进入 Munsell 系统会产生什么影响。

The worry is that the Munsell system will not only standardize the coding of the responses, but actually create standardized and unnatural responses rather than allowing the terms to refer to their actual reference.
令人担忧的是，Munsell 系统不仅会标准化响应的编码，而且实际上会创建标准化和不自然的响应，而不是允许术语引用它们的实际引用。

For a survey of recent work exploring color naming and its relationship to nonlinguistic cognition, see Kay and Regier (2006).
有关探索颜色命名及其与非语言认知关系的最新工作的调查，请参阅 Kay 和 Regier （2006）。

Shape Classification 形状分类

In determining whether or not the Navajo shape classification system influenced sorting behavior, Carroll and Casagrande (1958) attempted to balance cultural factors across samples by using English-speaking and Navajo-speaking ethnic Navajo children. As a control group, English-speaking, middle-class American children were used. The results from triad classification (by either shape/function or color) were largely consistent with the Navajo verb classification, in that the Navajo-speaking Navajo children demonstrated a greater preference for shape sorting than English-speaking Navajo children. Note, however, that English-speaking middle-class children also patterned like Navajo-speaking children, suggesting to Carroll and Casagrande that cultural factors beyond language play an important role in such classification.
在确定纳瓦霍形状分类系统是否影响排序行为时，Carroll 和 Casagrande （1958） 试图通过使用讲英语和讲纳瓦霍语的纳瓦霍族儿童来平衡样本之间的文化因素。作为对照组，使用了讲英语的美国中产阶级儿童。三元组分类的结果（按形状/功能或颜色）与纳瓦霍动词分类基本一致，因为讲纳瓦霍语的纳瓦霍儿童比讲英语的纳瓦霍儿童表现出更偏爱形状排序。然而，请注意，讲英语的中产阶级儿童也像说纳瓦霍语的儿童一样，这向卡罗尔和卡萨格兰德表明，语言以外的文化因素在这种分类中起着重要作用。

Lucy and Gaskins (2001) also use triad-type methods to compare Yucatecan children and adults with English-speaking Americans. Again, a broad consistency with each language’s classification system is found, but interestingly, this only becomes prominent after age nine (see section 5.6)
Lucy 和 Gaskins （2001） 也使用三合会类型的方法将尤卡坦儿童和成人与讲英语的美国人进行比较。同样，与每种语言的分类系统都有广泛的一致性，但有趣的是，这只有在 9 岁之后才会变得突出（参见第 5.6 节）

Conditional Reasoning 条件推理

With basic reasoning processes, variation is more likely to be viewed as directly advantageous or disadvantageous, that is, essentially correct or incorrect. Whether the hypothesized cause is linguistic or otherwise, in modern academia, the burden of proof appropriately falls most heavily on the researcher hoping to demonstrate any potential absence (or “deficiency”) within a particular community.
在基本的推理过程中，变化更有可能被视为直接有利或不利，即本质上正确或错误。无论假设的原因是语言还是其他原因，在现代学术界，举证责任最适当地落在希望证明特定社区内任何潜在缺失（或“缺陷”）的研究人员身上。

The work of Alfred Bloom and his many detractors falls fully into this predicament. Bloom (1981) proposed that Chinese (unlike English) lacks a specific counterfactual construction and that this has led to reduced ability to engage in counterfactual reasoning. The debate was carried across several volumes of Cognition: Au (1983, 1984), Bloom (1984), Liu (1985), Takano (1989); making use of different samples, these studies did not generally replicate Bloom’s findings.⁷ Unfortunately, there has been a tendency to interpret the various results (or lack thereof) as disconfirming linguistic relativity more generally rather than demonstrating a failure of a particular experimental design. Takano used Japanese speakers, who like Chinese speakers, lack a dedicated counterfactual construction, but found that their reasoning patterned like English speakers. More recently, Lardiere (1992) investigated Arabic speakers. Arabic patterns like English in that there is an explicit counterfactual construction, yet the Arabic participants performed like Bloom’s original Chinese subjects on counterfactual reasoning. From these studies, both Takano and Lardiere conclude that the principal effect on counterfactual reasoning is traceable not to linguistic habit, but to cultural practices of reasoning, testing conventions, and the like.
阿尔弗雷德·布鲁姆 （Alfred Bloom） 和他的许多批评者的工作完全陷入了这种困境。Bloom （1981） 提出中文（与英文不同）缺乏特定的反事实结构，这导致了进行反事实推理的能力下降。这场辩论贯穿了《认知》的几卷：Au （1983， 1984）， Bloom （1984）， Liu （1985）， Takano （1989）;利用不同的样本，这些研究通常不会复制布鲁姆的发现。不幸的是，人们倾向于将各种结果（或缺乏结果）解释为更普遍地否定语言相对性，而不是证明特定实验设计的失败。高野使用了说日语的人，他们和说中文的人一样，缺乏专门的反事实结构，但发现他们的推理模式与说英语的人相似。最近，Lardiere （1992） 调查了讲阿拉伯语的人。阿拉伯模式与英语一样，存在明确的反事实结构，但阿拉伯语参与者在反事实推理方面的表现与布鲁姆的原始中文科目相似。从这些研究中，Takano 和 Lardiere 都得出结论，对反事实推理的主要影响不是源于语言习惯，而是源于推理的文化实践、测试惯例等。

Another conclusion one might draw from these studies is that we cannot automatically assume that either linguistic or nonlinguistic habit will be discern-able from the presence or absence of specialized linguistic constructions. Obviously, those Chinese and Japanese speakers trained in formal counterfactual reasoning must have found some means of expression. Conversely, the Arabic speakers need not have used their counterfactual construction in ways analogous to the ways of formally educated English speakers.
从这些研究中可以得出的另一个结论是，我们不能自动假设语言习惯或非语言习惯可以从存在或不存在专门的语言结构中辨别出来。显然，那些受过正式反事实推理训练的中国人和日本人一定已经找到了某种表达方式。相反，讲阿拉伯语的人不需要以类似于受过正规教育的英语讲人的方式来使用他们的反事实结构。

Number 数

Cardinal Numbers 基数

One clear way in which languages vary is in their cardinal number systems. In addition to the obvious lack of larger numbers in many languages (at least as native vocabulary), languages also vary in their organization of these numbers. Various languages partially use a base twenty counting system and other languages appear to have relics of base five systems. But even within primarily base ten systems, there is variation of consistency and expression.
语言变化的一个明显方式是它们的基数系统。除了许多语言明显缺乏较大的数字（至少作为母语词汇）之外，语言对这些数字的组织也各不相同。各种语言部分使用以 20 为基数的计数系统，而其他语言似乎有以 5 为基数的系统的遗迹。但即使在以 10 为基数的系统中，一致性和表达也存在差异。

Miura (1987) argues that the generally superior mathematical abilities of school children in or from some cultures (especially East Asian) result at least in part from the transparency and exception-free nature of the base ten numerals used for counting, which children generally control prior to beginning formal education—see also the follow- up cross-linguistic studies: Miura and Okamoto (1989), Miura et al. (1988), Miura et al. (1993), Miura et al. (1994), Miura et al. (1999).
Miura （1987） 认为，在某些文化中或来自某些文化（尤其是东亚）的学童通常具有卓越的数学能力，至少部分是由于用于计数的十进制数字的透明度和无例外性质，儿童通常在开始正规教育之前就控制这些数字——另见后续的跨语言研究：Miura 和 Okamoto （1989）， Miura 等人 （1988）， Miura et al. （1993）， Miura et al. （1994）， Miura et al. （1999）。

Saxton and Towse (1998) provide a more cautious conclusion, suggesting that the influence of native language on the task of learning place values is less than argued for by Miura and colleagues. Many other differences in performance were found across groups which were better accounted for as resulting from general cultural attitudes toward education and so on, than as the result of the linguistic number system.
Saxton 和 Towse （1998） 提供了一个更为谨慎的结论，他们认为母语对学习位值任务的影响比 Miura 及其同事所论证的要小。在各群体之间发现了许多其他表现差异，这些差异最好地解释为对教育等的一般文化态度的结果，而不是语言数字系统的结果。

Grammatical Number 语法数字

On a grammatical level, languages vary in terms of their grammatical encoding of the number of entities in an event or scene. While this topic has not been widely taken up, the work of Lucy (1992a) is noteworthy for its extensive consideration of attention to number in Mayan and English speakers. An extensive typological discussion of grammatical number, though without focus on issues of linguistic relativity, is provided by Corbett (2000). Lastly, Hill and Hill (1998) discuss the effects of culture on language (rather than linguistic relativity) for number marking (plurals), and in particular the “anti- Whorfian effect” they find in Uto-Aztecan.
在语法层面上，语言在事件或场景中实体数量的语法编码方面有所不同。虽然这个话题没有被广泛讨论，但 Lucy （1992a） 的工作值得注意，因为它广泛考虑了玛雅人和英语使用者对数字的关注。Corbett （2000） 对语法数字进行了广泛的类型学讨论，尽管没有关注语言相对性问题。最后，Hill 和 Hill （1998） 讨论了文化对数字标记（复数）的语言（而不是语言相对性）的影响，特别是他们在 Uto-Aztecan 中发现的“反 Whorfian 效应”。

Space 空间

Reference Frames 参考框架

Currently, the primary area of linguistic relativity research in spatial domains is with reference frames (however, there is also the important developmental work on topological relations by Choi and Bowerman 1991, see below).
目前，空间领域语言相对论研究的主要领域是参考框架（然而，Choi 和 Bowerman 1991 也进行了关于拓扑关系的重要发展工作，见下文）。

Reference frames are the psychological or linguistic representation of relationships between entities in space. They require fixed points of reference, such as the speaker, a landmark, or an established direction. Within linguistics, the typology of reference frames is complicated, but most accounts include something like an intrinsic reference frame (whereby an object is located only with respect to an immediate point, e.g., The ball is next to the chair) and various flavors of reference frames which make use of additional orientation (e.g., The ball is to my right of the chair or The ball is to the north of the chair). Languages vary in terms of their habitually selected reference frames, and following the linguistic relativity hypothesis, speakers should also vary in their encoding spatial memories, making locational calculations, and so forth. For extensive work measuring event-related potential data (recordings at the scalp of electrical charges from brain activity during specific tasks), see the work of Taylor and colleagues: Taylor et al.
参考框架是空间中实体之间关系的心理或语言表示。它们需要固定的参考点，例如扬声器、地标或已确定的方向。在语言学中，参考系的类型学很复杂，但大多数解释包括类似内在参考系的东西（其中对象仅相对于直接点定位，例如，球在椅子旁边）和各种使用额外方向的参考系（例如，球在我的椅子右侧或球在椅子的北边）。语言在习惯性选择的参考框架方面有所不同，根据语言相对论假说，说话人在编码空间记忆、进行位置计算等方面也应该有所不同。有关测量事件相关潜在数据（特定任务期间大脑活动产生的电荷在头皮上的记录）的广泛工作，请参阅 Taylor 及其同事的工作：Taylor 等人。

(1999) and Taylor et al. (2001). These works compare the viewer/speaker-relative (or egocentric) reference frame with the intrinsic.
（1999 年）和 Taylor 等人（2001 年）。这些作品比较了观众/说话者相对的（或以自我为中心）参考框架。

Of note for being broadly comparative across diverse linguistic and cultural communities is the work reported in Pederson et al. (1998), which found correlations between habitual linguistic selection of reference frames and cognitive performance on spatial memory (and other) tasks. There were many studies within this same general project. Perhaps the most important to consult for the theoretical underpinnings for the project are Brown and Levinson (1993) and Levinson (1996). As pointed out by Li and Gleitman (2002), the populations reported as using an absolute/geo-cardinal (north of…) reference frame were largely rural populations, and the populations using a speaker-relative/egocentric reference frame are largely urban, so there is a potential confound in the population samples between language and culture/environment. For a rebuttal to these concerns and Li and Gleitman’s similar experiments, see Levinson et al. (2002); see also Pederson (1998) for a discussion of this urban/rural cultural split.
值得注意的是，Pederson et al. （1998） 报告的工作发现，参考框架的习惯性语言选择与空间记忆（和其他）任务的认知表现之间存在相关性。在这个一般项目中有许多研究。也许该项目的理论基础最重要的参考是 Brown 和 Levinson （1993） 和 Levinson （1996）。正如 Li 和 Gleitman （2002） 所指出的，报告使用绝对/地理基数（以北）参考框架的人群主要是农村人口，而使用说话人-相对/以自我为中心的参考框架的人群主要是城市人口，因此在人口样本中可能存在语言和文化/环境之间的混淆。关于对这些担忧以及 Li 和 Gleitman 的类似实验的反驳，参见 Levinson et al. （2002）;另见 Pederson （1998） 对这种城市/农村文化分裂的讨论。

Motion Events Motion 事件

Talmy (1985, 2000b) identifies a typological contrast in the ways that languages encode basic motion events. To simplify, some languages such as the Romance languages commonly encode the fact of motion and the basic path with the main verb (e.g., to enter, to ascend, etc.). In contrast, Germanic and many other languages most commonly encode the fact of motion along with the manner of motion in the verb (e.g., to wiggle), and the path is expressed elsewhere.
Talmy （1985， 2000b） 确定了语言编码基本运动事件的方式中的类型对比。为简化起见，一些语言，如罗曼语系，通常用主要动词（例如，进入、上升等）来编码运动的事实和基本路径。相比之下，日耳曼语和许多其他语言最常将运动的事实与动词中的运动方式（例如，to wiggle）一起编码，而路径则在其他地方表示。

Slobin (1991, 1996) considers the cognitive consequences of these linguistic patterns for English and Spanish speakers. Slobin (2000) extends this approach to French, Hebrew, Russian, and Turkish. Gennari et al. (2002) and Malt, Sloman, and Gennari (2003) examine these contrasts experimentally and argue for some effects of one’s native language pattern on certain nonlinguistic tasks.
Slobin （1991， 1996） 考虑了这些语言模式对英语和西班牙语使用者的认知影响。Slobin （2000） 将这种方法扩展到法语、希伯来语、俄语和土耳其语。Gennari et al. （2002） 和 Malt， Sloman， and Gennari （2003） 通过实验研究了这些对比，并论证了母语模式对某些非语言任务的一些影响。

Time

While spatial relationships have been extensively studied for linguistic relativity effects, the effects of different temporal encoding have received much less attention. In part, this may be attributed to the relative difficulty of developing research instruments. An obvious difference cross-linguistically is whether or not a language grammatically encodes tense. Bohnemeyer (1998) discusses the lack of tense-denoting constructions in Yucatec Mayan and contrasts this with German speakers observing the same video stimuli; nonetheless, both samples appeared to have encoded similar event orderings in memory. Languages also have some variation in preferred metaphors for talking about time. Boroditsky (2000, 2001) argues that Mandarin Chinese speakers have a different metaphor for time (vertical) and this appears to influence their nonlinguistic encoding as well.
虽然语言相对论效应的空间关系已被广泛研究，但不同时间编码的影响受到的关注要少得多。这在一定程度上可能归因于开发研究工具的相对难度。跨语言的一个明显区别是语言是否在语法上编码时态。Bohnemeyer （1998） 讨论了尤卡坦玛雅语中缺乏时态表示结构的问题，并将其与观察相同视频刺激的德语使用者进行了对比;尽管如此，这两个样本似乎都在内存中编码了类似的事件顺序。语言在谈论时间的首选隐喻方面也有一些变化。Boroditsky （2000， 2001） 认为，普通话使用者对时间（垂直）有不同的隐喻，这似乎也影响了他们的非语言编码。

Developmental Studies 发展研究

Ultimately, any linguistic relativity effects must be explained in terms of the acquisition of linguistic categories and the effects on cognitive development.
归根结底，任何语言相对论效应都必须根据语言类别的获得和对认知发展的影响来解释。

Choi and Bowerman (1991) and Bowerman and Choi (2001) contrast early lexical acquisition of Korean and English spatial terms, principally those expressing contact, closure, and similar concepts. Korean-speaking adults use spatial terms to categorize subtypes of these different relationships in very different ways from English-speaking adults. Perhaps surprisingly, Choi and Bowerman report that Korean-speaking children as young as two demonstrate linguistic patterning more like the Korean-speaking adults than like the English-speaking children (and vice versa). This suggests that even in fairly early lexical acquisition, children show remarkable sensitivity to the specific language input rather than relying on purportedly universal cognitive categorizations and fitting the language categories onto these.
Choi 和 Bowerman （1991） 以及 Bowerman 和 Choi （2001） 对比了韩语和英语空间术语的早期词汇习得，主要是那些表达接触、闭合和类似概念的术语。讲韩语的成年人使用空间术语对这些不同关系的亚型进行分类，其方式与讲英语的成年人截然不同。也许令人惊讶的是，Choi 和 Bowerman 报告说，年仅两岁的韩语儿童表现出的语言模式更像说韩语的成年人，而不是说英语的儿童（反之亦然）。这表明，即使在相当早期的词汇习得中，儿童也对特定的语言输入表现出非凡的敏感性，而不是依赖据称普遍的认知分类并将语言类别拟合到这些分类上。

Lowenstein and Gentner (1998), Gentner and Loewenstein (2002), and Gentner and Boroditsky (2001) argue that metaphor and analogical reasoning are key parts of concept development and early word meaning. To the extent that these are cross-linguistically variable, it can be argued that linguistic relativity effects may be present especially for abstract reasoning which most depends on relational terminology and analogy.
Lowenstein 和 Gentner （1998）、Gentner 和 Loewenstein （2002） 以及 Gentner 和 Boroditsky （2001） 认为隐喻和类比推理是概念发展和早期词义的关键部分。在某种程度上，这些是跨语言可变的，可以说语言相对性效应可能存在，特别是对于最依赖于关系术语和类比的抽象推理。

As mentioned in the section on shape classification, Lucy and Gaskins (2001) look at the age of development of language-particular patterns in shape versus material sorting tasks. Assuming one can extrapolate from their data, the critical age at which language helps to direct nonlinguistic behavior (for these sorts of tasks) is around ages 7–9. This suggests that the acquisition of language categories need not immediately manifest cognitive effects in nonlinguistic domains, but rather that there maybe a period in which the linguistic categories are initially more solely linguistic and then eventually the analogy from language to other types of categorization is drawn. It may also reflect a greater dependence on linguistically mediated internal thought, à la Vygotsky.
如形状分类部分所述，Lucy 和 Gaskins （2001） 研究了形状与材料分类任务中语言特定模式的发展年龄。假设可以从他们的数据中推断出，语言帮助指导非语言行为（对于这类任务）的关键年龄约为 7-9 岁。这表明语言类别的获得不需要立即在非语言领域表现出认知影响，而是可能在某个时期，语言类别最初更纯粹地是语言的，然后最终得出从语言到其他类型的分类的类比。它也可能反映出对语言中介的内部思想的更大依赖，就像维果茨基一样。

Susan Goldin-Meadow and colleagues have examined the interplay of gesture, home sign, and conventional language use and their relationships to underlying (and developing) cognitive representations. A good recent summary may be found in Goldin-Meadow (2002) and the references within. Zheng and Goldin-Meadow (2002) examine the similarities across cultures in home sign despite notable differences in the adult spoken languages. These commonalities suggest what the underlying conceptual categories may be in children prior to acquiring the “filter” provided by the model of a specific language.
Susan Goldin-Meadow 及其同事研究了手势、家庭手势和传统语言使用的相互作用，以及它们与潜在（和发展中的）认知表征的关系。最近的一个很好的总结可以在 Goldin-Meadow （2002） 和其中的参考文献中找到。Zheng 和 Goldin-Meadow （2002） 研究了家庭手语中不同文化的相似性，尽管成人口语存在显着差异。这些共性表明，在获得特定语言模型提供的 “过滤器 ”之前，儿童的潜在概念类别可能是什么。

Working with English-speaking children and language acquisition delayed deaf children, de Villiers and de Villiers (2000) argue that language has a vital role in the development of understandings of false beliefs—at least insofar as demonstrated in unseen displacement. (For example, the puppet doesn’t see that I replaced the crayons in the crayon box with a key; what does the puppet think is in the crayon box?) Language is
de Villiers 和 de Villiers （2000） 与讲英语的儿童和语言习得延迟的聋孩子一起工作，认为语言在理解错误信念的发展中起着至关重要的作用——至少在看不见的流离失所中是这样。（例如，木偶没有看到我用钥匙替换了蜡笔盒中的蜡笔;木偶认为蜡笔盒里有什么？语言是

eminently suited for the representation of counterfactual and alternative beliefs, so it is unclear whether it is the specifics of language acquisition or just general exposure to alternatives that happen to come through the medium of language which might be driving this development. For a summary of the work by Gopnik and colleagues on the potential interactions of language and cognitive development, especially around ages 1–2, see Gopnik (2001).
非常适合于代表反事实和替代信念，因此目前尚不清楚是语言习得的细节，还是只是碰巧通过语言媒介出现的对替代方案的一般接触，这可能推动了这一发展。有关 Gopnik 及其同事关于语言和认知发展的潜在相互作用的工作摘要，尤其是 1-2 岁左右，请参阅 Gopnik （2001）。

Sign Language versus Spoken Language 手语与口语

Lastly, what of the medium of the language itself? Might the mechanical constraints of spoken language versus sign language have their own influences? Working with native ASL signers and English speakers on mental rotation tasks, Emmorey, Klima, and Hickok (1998) show evidence that the vast experience of signers in understanding their interlocutors’ spatial perspective during signing has given them some advantage in nonlinguistic rotation tasks compared with nonsigners.
最后，语言本身的媒介呢？口语与手语的机械限制是否有其自身的影响？Emmorey、Klima 和 Hickok （1998） 与母语为 ASL 的手语者和讲英语的人一起完成心理轮换任务，表明手语者在理解手语对话者空间视角方面的丰富经验使他们在非语言轮换任务中与非手语者相比具有一些优势。

Future Directions 未来方向

As can be seen from the above discussion, the issue of linguistic relativity is as open a question as it is broad. However, as empirically driven models of human cognition become increasingly detailed, work within linguistic relativity (and Cognitive Linguistics generally) becomes increasingly specific in its description of cognitive mechanisms.
从上面的讨论中可以看出，语言相对性问题既是一个开放的问题，也是一个广泛的问题。然而，随着人类认知的经验驱动模型变得越来越详细，语言相对论（以及一般的认知语言学）中的工作在对认知机制的描述中变得越来越具体。

The question “Does language influence thought?” is being replaced by a battery of questions about whether a given feature of a specific language influences particular cognitive operations, what the exact cognitive mechanisms are which give rise to this influence, and how we can most precisely characterize the nature of this influence?
“语言是否影响思想”这个问题正在被一系列问题所取代，这些问题涉及特定语言的给定特征是否会影响特定的认知操作，引起这种影响的确切认知机制是什么，以及我们如何最精确地描述这种影响的性质？

Rather than this being a step away from the “big picture” of human cognition, this general trend toward increasingly precise definitions and, ideally, more falsifiable hypotheses leads us to a simply more reliable understanding of cognition and the role of language within it.
这并不是离人类认知的“大局”只有一步之遥，而是这种越来越精确的定义和理想情况下更可证伪的假设的总体趋势引导我们对认知及其中语言的作用有一个更可靠的理解。

As we discover more of the specific interactions between language and the rest of the cognitive systems, there is a need to understand the time course of this development. Except for Lucy and Gaskins (2001) and some of the home sign studies, there has been virtually no attempt to determine the time course of any linguistic relativity effects. If language influences a particular cognitive operation or conceptualization, does it do so upon acquisition of the language model, shortly subsequent to this acquisition, or is there a gradual “internalization” (in Vygotskian terms) of the linguistic structure as something more than a learned code?
随着我们发现语言与其他认知系统之间的更多特定互动，有必要了解这种发展的时间进程。除了 Lucy 和 Gaskins （2001） 以及一些家庭符号研究外，几乎没有尝试确定任何语言相对论效应的时间进程。如果语言影响了特定的认知操作或概念化，那么它是在获得语言模型时，在这种习得之后不久才影响的，还是语言结构逐渐“内化”（用维果茨基的术语来说）不仅仅是一种习得的代码？

One must also wonder whether certain linguistic construals more readily have influences beyond language than others. For example, is spatial categorization more likely to be influenced by language than color categorization is, or vice versa? If some domains are more linguistically sensitive, what do these domains have in common?
人们还必须怀疑，某些语言解释是否比其他解释更容易产生超越语言的影响。例如，空间分类是否比颜色分类更容易受语言的影响，反之亦然？如果某些域在语言上更敏感，那么这些域有什么共同点？

These are all broad questions and are unlikely to be resolved in the immediate future. However, as research in linguistic relativity becomes increasingly mainstream within psychology and linguistics, it seems certain that we will understand ever more of the complexities between language and thought.
这些都是广泛的问题，不太可能在不久的将来得到解决。然而，随着语言相对论的研究在心理学和语言学中越来越成为主流，我们似乎可以肯定的是，我们将越来越多地理解语言和思想之间的复杂性。

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Notes:

(1.) Many more recent writings by Alford on Whorf, linguistic relativity, and related topics can be found on Alford’s Web site: http://www.enformy.com/alford.htm.

(2.) This idea was apparently insufficiently discredited as it has more recently resurfaced in the popular press with Shlain (1998)—where it is now associated with the demise of polytheism and the claimed consequent surge of misogyny in European history.

(3.) Anecdotally, I can report that subjects in spatial reference frame experiments would use their linguistically dominant frame of reference in nonlinguistic tasks but would switch when they heard an alternate frame of reference used immediately before the task. (Specifically, when an assistant erroneously used nonneutral language in an example.) In subsequent tasks, with no reference frame language repeated, the subjects could switch over to what might well have been a more default reference frame for such tasks. Of course, these subject results are not coded with other subjects, and this dictated extreme care in controlling the immediately preceding linguistic environment during experimental sessions.

(4.) College students (especially those participating for credit in an introductory psychology class!) are infamous for trying to second guess the “hidden” purpose of an experiment. Surely, such subjects are less directly comparable with the perhaps experimentally less savvy subjects drawn from other populations.

(5.) Li and Gleitman (2002) changed “small procedural details” (see their footnote 5) in this experiment—notably they eliminated the distance between the tables—and report different results. Although they do not attribute the different results to these changes, but rather to other uncontrolled variables in the original study, the control of the experimental setup clearly can be critical for evaluating the results.

(6.) The linguistic parallels with basic operations in visual perception imply a bias favoring the building of linguistic categories from more fundamental cognitive categories rather than any particular influence from language to cognition.

(7.) Cara and Politzer (1993) also found no correspondence of language to reasoning with Chinese and English speakers on counterfactual reasoning tasks, though the design seems uninfluenced by the debate in Cognition.

Eric Pederson

Eric Pederson (PhD 1991) is associate professor of Linguistics at the University of Oregon. The overarching theme of his research is the relationship between language and conceptual processes. He was a student at the University of California, Berkeley, working within Cognitive Linguistics with George Lakoff, Dan Slobin, Eve Sweetser, and Leonard Talmy since 1980. He joined the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in 1991 until 1997, where he began working on issues more specific to linguistic relativity. Relevant publications include “Geographic and Manipulable Space in Two Tamil Linguistic Systems” (1993); “Language as Context, Language as Means: Spatial Cognition and Habitual Language use” (1995); “Semantic Typology and Spatial Conceptualization” (with Eve Danziger, Stephen Levinson, Sotaro Kita, Gunter Senft, and David Wilkins, 1998); “Through the Looking Glass: Literacy, Writing Systems and Mirror Image Discrimination” (with Eve Danziger, 1998); and “Mirror-Image Discrimination among Nonliterate, Monoliterate, and Biliterate Tamil Speakers” (2003). In addition to linguistic relativity, his general interests include semantic typology, field/descriptive linguistics (South India), and the representation of events. Eric Pederson can be reached at epederso@uoregon.edu.

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via: Cognitive Linguistics and Linguistic Relativity | The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics | Oxford Academic
https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/34552/chapter-abstract/293180229