Rethinking Linguistic Relativity: Does Language Shape our Thought?

Celia Liu, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Abstract

Do we perceive the world differently based on our language? This thought-provoking issue is explored through extensive research and analysis.

PROFILE PICTURE

BIO

Celia is a junior student majoring in Chinese and Bilingual Studies at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Coming from Shandong, Weihai, she enjoys diverse interests such as cooking, jogging and reading, especially Chinese prose and poetry. She is not an extrovert, but has always enjoyed the exchange and intercommunication of pluralistic cultures. She is a slow writer, but endeavors to make every sentence sparkling and insightful. Celia wishes to travel around the world, but her heart is profoundly and sentimentally attached to her hometown on the seaside of the Shandong peninsula.

REFLECTION

I became interested in the relationship between language and thought when I started my first course Introduction to Linguistics at PolyU. Regrettably, we didn’t have time to thoroughly study this topic at the time, but I have been pondering the influence that our native language imposed on us since then and finally got the chance to carefully examine it in my course, ENGL2003 English for Advanced Academic Writing.

It was a fascinating journey to write this article, so I’d like to share my work with you, hoping that you can also take pleasure in the scientific exploration of language arts. Looking back, I also feel grateful for my subject teacher and Inscribe editors. Thanks for Toni Lam’s clear guidelines and Tim Lee’s careful examination, this paper was further polished into a mature piece of work.