Cultural relativism of D. Everett in the context of universal grammar of N. Chomsky and linguistic relativism

Annotation

This paper examines the role of D. Everett's cultural relativism in investigating the language-thought relationship, contrasting it with theories of linguistic relativism and N. Chomsky's universal grammar. The article identifies fundamental divergences between these approaches: universal grammar considers language as an innate biological ability, whereas cultural relativism considers language to be a plastic cultural instrument that is formed in the process of social interaction and adapts to the communicative needs of a particular community. In turn, linguistic relativism rejects the thesis of the direct determination of linguistic structures by cultural factors, which is expressed by D. Everett, and cultural relativism criticizes a strong version of linguistic determinism. Despite these contradictions, the approaches demonstrate complementarity rather than antagonism: universal grammar explains the potential of linguistic capacity, cultural relativism focuses on variability in its realization, and linguistic relativism examines the mutual influence between language and thought within specific sociocultural contexts. Treating these conceptual frameworks as complementary allows overcoming the limitations of each theory's radical postulates and enables the development of a more comprehensive model for explaining the language-thought relationship that accounts for both individual and collective cognitive specificities.

Keywords

• cultural relativism
• linguistic relativism
• universal grammar
• D. Everett
• N. Chomsky
• Piraha tribe
• the relationship between language and thinking
• cultural determinism
• linguistic determinism
• the relationship between language and culture
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