Humboldts Konzept einer sprachlichen Weltansicht und seine Stellung in der Geschichte des sprachlichen Relativismus

Abstract

The idea of a linguistic worldview was clearly expressed in German national romantic thought of the early 19th century, where language was seen as the expression of the spirit of a nation. Wilhelm von Humboldt argued that every language shaped the world-view of its speakers, but he also saw a possibility to improve human knowledge in the co-action of languages. The idea of linguistic relativity can be found in John Locke’s statement that words interpose themselves between our understandings and the truth which it would contemplate and apprehend. In the 18th century, we can find formulations that our language accustoms us to arrange our ideas in a specific way, that some languages are more suitable for certain kinds of thought, or that metaphors have significant influence on peoples’ thought. In the 20th century the Neo-Humboldtian school revitalised the idea of an influence of language on thought in a reductionist way. At the end of the 20th century, some authors, for example John J. Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson, tried to rethink linguistic relativity and to prove it by empirical results.