In these examples, we have treated differences in language use as evidence of different ways of talking about external reality. This is often discussed in terms of linguistic relativity because it seems that the structure of our language, with its predetermined categories, must have an influence on how we perceive the world. In its weak version, this idea simply captures the fact that we not only talk, but to a certain extent probably also think about the world of experience, using the categories provided by our language. Our first language seems to have a definite role in shaping “habitual thought,” that is, the way we think about things as we go about our daily lives, without analyzing how we’re thinking.

There is a stronger version of this idea, called linguistic determinism, which holds that “language determines thought.” If language does indeed determine thought, then we will only be able to think in the categories provided by our language. For example, English speakers use one word for “snow,” and generally see all that white stuff as one thing. In contrast, so the argument goes, Eskimos look out at all the white stuff and see it as many different things because they have lots of different words for “snow.” So, the category system inherent in the language determines how the speaker interprets and articulates experience. We shall return to the topic of “snow,” but the proposal just described provides a good example of an approach to analyzing the connection between language and culture that dates back to the eighteenth century.