symposium

Rethinking Linguistic Relativity

Date

May 3 - Mar 11, 1991

Organized by

John Gumperz and Stephen Levinson

Location

The Jamaica Inn, Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Publications

Rethinking Linguistic Relativity (John J. Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson, Eds.), Cambridge University Press, New York, 1996.

Participants

  • Niyi Akinnaso State University of New York, Albany, USA
  • Talal Asad New School for Social Research, USA
  • Norine Berenz University of California, Berkeley, USA
  • Melissa Bowerman Max-Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, The Netherlands
  • Pascal Boyer University of Cambridge, UK
  • Herbert Clark Stanford University, USA
  • Elsa Gomez-Imbert Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France
  • John Gumperz University of California, Berkeley, USA
  • William Hanks University of Chicago, USA
  • John B. Haviland Reed College, USA
  • Paul Kay University of California, Berkeley, USA
  • Janet D. Keller University of Illinois, USA
  • Jean Lave University of California, Berkeley, USA
  • Stephen Levinson Max-Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, The Netherlands
  • John Lucy University of Pennsylvania, USA
  • Elinor Ochs University of California, Los Angeles, USA
  • Sydel Silverman Wenner-Gren Foundation, USA
  • Dan I. Slobin University of California, Berkeley, USA
  • Leonard Talmy State University of New York, Buffalo, USA
  • Pamela Wright Wenner-Gren Foundation, USA

ORGANIZER’S STATEMENT: The symposium gathered together scholars from seven nations and a range of disciplines including anthropology, linguistics, education, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and cognitive science to discuss issues clustering around the theme of linguistic relativity. The conference focused on issues concerning the interconnections of language, thought and culture. The primary question was whether the idea of linguistic relativity could be reformulated to account for both the universal features (common across all cultures) and the cultural differences in language and thought.

Wenner-Gren Symposium #112

Front (kneeling, seated): L. Obbink, P. Kay, S.Levinson, W. Hanks. Middle: N. Akinnaso, T. Asad, H. Clark, J. Keller, S. Silverman, J. Lucy, D. Slobin, M. Bowerman, J. Lave, E. Gomez-Imbert, P. Boyer, P. Wright, E. Ochs, J. Gumperz, L. Talmy, N. Berenz. Back: S. MacBride, J. Haviland.