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Full-Text Articles in Anthropological Linguistics and Sociolinguistics
Penguins Can't Fly And Women Don't Count: Language And Thought, Janet M. Bing
Penguins Can't Fly And Women Don't Count: Language And Thought, Janet M. Bing
English Faculty Publications
Many people object to sexist and racist language partly because they assume that language not only reflects, but somehow affects attitudes. A one-to-one relationship between language and thought seems obvious to those who never question it, but the issue of whether language influences thought and behavior has been a matter of debate in philosophy even before Berkeley and Wittgenstein. Literary critics, particularly those who call themselves deconstructionists, are still debating to what extent language constructs reality.