Linguistic Influence On Thought At The Levels Of Lexicon, Grammar And Discourse

The relationship between language and thought has long been a controversial issue. it is for its important role in human communication that many linguists, philosophers, psychologista have paid much attention . They have studied, criticized it, or even denied it, but they have not come to the sane conclusions because of two reasons. One is that the researchers may, from different points of view, reach different conclusions. American structural grammarians, for example, hold the view of linguistic influence on thought. However, the researchers holding the universal view believe that language is affected by thought. The other reason is that some of the researchers have come to their conclusions without making a further research on the linguistic structures. Take the Piaget school for example, it once denied the linguistic effect in the cognitive development. (Slobin, 1971, p119). This thesis means, from the point of view of linguistics, psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology, to make a research on the issue of linguistic influence on thought at the levels of lexicon, grammar, sentence and discourse. The motive of my research is to reach some realistic and scientific conclusions, which can to some extent be useful to the teaching of native and foreign language as well as translation between languages. This thesis consists of six parts: Part One is the brief introduction or history of the researches and views on the linguistic influence on thought. Part Two (Chapter One) discusses the relationship between language and thought and their mutual influence. Part Three (Chapter Two) focuses on the reasonable factors in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and expounds the influence of linguistic system and structure on thought. Part Four (Chapter Three) gives, from the point of view of linguistics, psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology, a detailed analysis of linguistic influence on thought at the level of lexicon, grammar, and discourse. Part Five (Chapter Four) discusses and expounds the role of the theory :n the teaching of native and foreign language as well as the translation between languages.Part Six (Conc1usion) SUInPs up the content of the proceedinq four chapters.The study of 1inguistic influence on thought is of qreat cheorecica1 and pracc1ca1va1ue. The author hopes that this thesis can be usefu1 to some extent in the fie1dsof 1inguisLic research, 1anqueqe teaching and trans1ation.