Rights statement: This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Applied Linguistics following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version Panos Athanasopoulos, Emanuel Bylund, Whorf in the Wild: Naturalistic Evidence from Human Interaction, Applied Linguistics, 41 (6), https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amz050 is available online at: https://academic.oup.com/applij/article-abstract/41/6/947/5626203
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Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Whorf in the Wild
T2 - Naturalistic Evidence from Human Interaction
AU - Athanasopoulos, Panos
AU - Bylund, Emanuel
N1 - This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Applied Linguistics following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version Panos Athanasopoulos, Emanuel Bylund, Whorf in the Wild: Naturalistic Evidence from Human Interaction, Applied Linguistics, 41 (6), https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amz050 is available online at: https://academic.oup.com/applij/article-abstract/41/6/947/5626203
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - The past few decades have seen a full resurgence of the question of whether speakers of different languages think differently, also known as the Whorfian question. A characteristic of this neo-Whorfian enterprise is that the knowledge it has generated stems from psycholinguistic laboratory methods. As a consequence, our knowledge about how Whorfian effects play out in naturally occurring behaviour (i.e. ‘in the wild’) is severely limited. This study argues that the time is ripe to redeem this evidentiary bias, and advocates a multidisciplinary approach towards the Whorfian question, in which insights from laboratory settings are combined with naturalistic data in order to yield a rounded picture of the influence of language on thought. To showcase the potential of such an approach, the study uses laboratory-generated knowledge on the influence of grammatical categories on cognition to interpret two examples of naturalistic human interaction and action in the domains of spatial navigation and scientific practice.
AB - The past few decades have seen a full resurgence of the question of whether speakers of different languages think differently, also known as the Whorfian question. A characteristic of this neo-Whorfian enterprise is that the knowledge it has generated stems from psycholinguistic laboratory methods. As a consequence, our knowledge about how Whorfian effects play out in naturally occurring behaviour (i.e. ‘in the wild’) is severely limited. This study argues that the time is ripe to redeem this evidentiary bias, and advocates a multidisciplinary approach towards the Whorfian question, in which insights from laboratory settings are combined with naturalistic data in order to yield a rounded picture of the influence of language on thought. To showcase the potential of such an approach, the study uses laboratory-generated knowledge on the influence of grammatical categories on cognition to interpret two examples of naturalistic human interaction and action in the domains of spatial navigation and scientific practice.
U2 - 10.1093/applin/amz050
DO - 10.1093/applin/amz050
M3 - Journal article
VL - 41
SP - 947
EP - 970
JO - Applied Linguistics
JF - Applied Linguistics
SN - 0142-6001
IS - 6
ER -