linguistic determinism
the hypothesis, most commonly associated with the U.S. linguists Edward Sapir (1884–1939) and Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941), that the semantic structure of a particular language determines the structure of mental categories among its speakers. Because languages differ in how they refer to basic categories and dimensions, such as time, space, and duration, native speakers of these languages are assumed to show corresponding differences in their ways of thinking. Also called Sapir–Whorf hypothesis; Whorfian hypothesis. Compare linguistic relativity. See also anthropological linguistics; contrastive rhetoric.