The notion of culture behind linguistic determinism/relativism
Abstract
The relation between language and culture is a recurrent topic in the fields of philosophy, linguistics and anthropology. Among the theoretical approaches to the problem are linguistic determinism and relativism, according to which language plays a fundamental role in shaping the speakers’ worldview. This article analyses the notion of culture underlying the premises of linguistic determinism/relativism, understood as language ideologies.
The study concludes that both perspectives are based on an ahistorical view of language and culture, which obscures their dynamic and heterogenous nature, although linguistic relativism is more flexible in this respect. Accordingly, linguistic determinism is associated with a classical or descriptive view of culture, whereas linguistic relativism is considered compatible with both the descriptive and the symbolic notion of culture.
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