Author Description

This book looks at the relativity principle of pioneering American linguist Benjamin Whorf which has been a focus of controversy among scholars of language for half a century. Many claim that this principle amounts to Whorf's assertion that language determines thought and culture, while others vigorously reject such a claim. Emily Schultz re-reads Whorf in terms of Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, and argues that the Whorfian controversy is rooted in the polyphonic character of his best-known texts. By combining Whorfian and Bakhtinian insights concerning variation within and across languages, Schultz aims to offer a new dialogic interpretation of linguistic relativity that should be of interest to students and scholars of anthropology, linguistics, cognitive psychology, philosophy of language and literary and art criticism.