Mandarin Chinese has no conditional tense, the Pirahã language has no numbers or color terms. The Kawesqar of South America have no way of demarcating the future and the Manambu tribe on New Guinea have only one word to denote eating, drinking and inhaling.

How much do these differences really matter? According to Benjanin Lee Whorf, the early C20th linguist, languages shape how their speakers perceive and conceptualize the world. If this is true, major differences between languages should correlate with major differences between the way those language communities perceive and reason about the world. For Whorf, language exerts a profound influence on perception, thought and culture.

In this eye-opening course, linguist John McWhorter argues that this claim is both dangerous and largely wrong. Drawing on case studies from around the world, McWhorter makes the case that linguistic effects on perception are insignificant, many linguistic features are arbitrary and that Whorfianism can lead to simplistic and often racist conclusions.  

By the end of this course, you will have learnt:

• How Whorf developed his original hypothesis and how his ideas persist.
• What the latest psychological research tells us about the relation between language and cognition.
• How certain linguistic features don’t correlate with cultural characteristics.
• How old languages differ from younger languages like creoles.
• Why, for McWhorter, culture demonstrates diversity, but languages demonstrate our similarity.

Through video lectures, questions and suggested reading discover John McWhorter's ideas about the relationship between language, perception and culture. Share your ideas and support your learning through our discussion boards and test your knowledge through an end of course assessment.

IAI Academy courses are designed to be challenging but accessible to the interested student. No specialist knowledge is required.