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Comment on Vigliocco，G.et al.（2005） and Review on Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Does language shape thought？ The question derived from Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis has never been easy to answer with certainty.Nevertheless，the attempts and trials of tackling this question seldom stops.The Vigliocco et al.paper “Grammatical gender effects on cognition： implications for language learning and language use” is one of those researches.Four experiments were conducted to address the mechanisms by which grammatical gender may come to affect meaning.It was concluded that 1） gender effects arise as a generalization from an established association between gender of nouns and sex of human referents，extending to nouns referring to sexuated entities.And 2） these effects during processing arise at a lexical-semantic level rather than at a conceptual level，in other words，grammatical gender only has effects on lexical meaning，but not on nonlinguistic behaviors.
Research questions
The researchers tested two hypotheses by which gender effects may arise：
（1）Gender effects arise as a consequence of similarity in linguistic context （similarity and gender hypothesis）.
（2）Gender effects arise as a generalization from transparent relationship between sex and human referents and gender of nouns （sex and gender hypothesis）.
These two hypotheses were tested by investigating the gender system of two languages： Italian and German.
Experiments
A series of 4 experiments investigating Italian and German were presented using tasks sensitive to meaning similarity.Experiment 1 and 2 tested the two hypotheses for Italian speakers.Experiment 3 replicated experiment 1 in German as an additional test of the hypothesis.Experiment 4 used pictures to test the extent of gender effects.
Conclusion
The 4 experiments were designed to address the strength and pervasiveness of language-specific grammatical gender effects on semantic representations for the corresponding objects.It was found that language-specific effects were highly constrained： limited to a language with a two-gender system （Italian）； limited to tasks that require verbalization and they were observed in certain semantic categories （animals） and not others （artifacts） in Italian.
Comment and Review on Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
The Vigliocco et al.research found the presence of an effect was only for linguistic tasks，which led them to believe that thinking for speaking only has effects on tasks that engage linguistic coding，at least for grammatical gender. However，besides the consensus that grammatical gender can affect meaning，some researchers do believe that talking about inanimate objects as if they were masculine or feminine leads people to think of them as masculine or feminine.A possible way that the effects work is that in order to effectively learn the grammatical gender of a noun，people focus on some property of that noun’s referent that may pick it out as masculine or feminine.And even after the grammatical genders of nouns are learned，language may influence thought during thinking for speaking.The need to refer to an object as masculine or feminine may lead people to selectively attend to that object’s masculine or feminine qualities，thus making them more salient （Boroditsky，et al.2003）.
This divergence leads us to revisit the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis here.
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis （also called Whorfian Hypothesis or the linguistic relativity） states that language influences thoughts.In its strongest form，the hypothesis states that language controls both the thought and perception.Several experiments have shown that this is not necessarily true.The weaker form of the hypothesis，which states that language influences form，has remained unanswered due to its vagueness.Models of cognition developed after Whorf’s day indicate ways in which thought can be influenced by cultural variations in the lexical，syntactical，semantic，and pragmatic aspects of language （Hunt，et al.1991）.
Kay cited Brown’s summary for Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in one of his publications：
“Whorf appeared to put forward two hypotheses：
I Structural differences between language systems will，in general，be paralleled by nonlinguistic cognitive differences，of an unspecified sort，in the native speakers of the two languages.
II The structure of anyone’s native language strongly influences and fully determines the world-view he will acquire as he learns the language” （Kay
Does language shape thought？ The question derived from Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis has never been easy to answer with certainty.Nevertheless，the attempts and trials of tackling this question seldom stops.The Vigliocco et al.paper “Grammatical gender effects on cognition： implications for language learning and language use” is one of those researches.Four experiments were conducted to address the mechanisms by which grammatical gender may come to affect meaning.It was concluded that 1） gender effects arise as a generalization from an established association between gender of nouns and sex of human referents，extending to nouns referring to sexuated entities.And 2） these effects during processing arise at a lexical-semantic level rather than at a conceptual level，in other words，grammatical gender only has effects on lexical meaning，but not on nonlinguistic behaviors.
Research questions
The researchers tested two hypotheses by which gender effects may arise：
（1）Gender effects arise as a consequence of similarity in linguistic context （similarity and gender hypothesis）.
（2）Gender effects arise as a generalization from transparent relationship between sex and human referents and gender of nouns （sex and gender hypothesis）.
These two hypotheses were tested by investigating the gender system of two languages： Italian and German.
Experiments
A series of 4 experiments investigating Italian and German were presented using tasks sensitive to meaning similarity.Experiment 1 and 2 tested the two hypotheses for Italian speakers.Experiment 3 replicated experiment 1 in German as an additional test of the hypothesis.Experiment 4 used pictures to test the extent of gender effects.
Conclusion
The 4 experiments were designed to address the strength and pervasiveness of language-specific grammatical gender effects on semantic representations for the corresponding objects.It was found that language-specific effects were highly constrained： limited to a language with a two-gender system （Italian）； limited to tasks that require verbalization and they were observed in certain semantic categories （animals） and not others （artifacts） in Italian.
Comment and Review on Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
The Vigliocco et al.research found the presence of an effect was only for linguistic tasks，which led them to believe that thinking for speaking only has effects on tasks that engage linguistic coding，at least for grammatical gender. However，besides the consensus that grammatical gender can affect meaning，some researchers do believe that talking about inanimate objects as if they were masculine or feminine leads people to think of them as masculine or feminine.A possible way that the effects work is that in order to effectively learn the grammatical gender of a noun，people focus on some property of that noun’s referent that may pick it out as masculine or feminine.And even after the grammatical genders of nouns are learned，language may influence thought during thinking for speaking.The need to refer to an object as masculine or feminine may lead people to selectively attend to that object’s masculine or feminine qualities，thus making them more salient （Boroditsky，et al.2003）.
This divergence leads us to revisit the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis here.
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis （also called Whorfian Hypothesis or the linguistic relativity） states that language influences thoughts.In its strongest form，the hypothesis states that language controls both the thought and perception.Several experiments have shown that this is not necessarily true.The weaker form of the hypothesis，which states that language influences form，has remained unanswered due to its vagueness.Models of cognition developed after Whorf’s day indicate ways in which thought can be influenced by cultural variations in the lexical，syntactical，semantic，and pragmatic aspects of language （Hunt，et al.1991）.
Kay cited Brown’s summary for Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in one of his publications：
“Whorf appeared to put forward two hypotheses：
I Structural differences between language systems will，in general，be paralleled by nonlinguistic cognitive differences，of an unspecified sort，in the native speakers of the two languages.
II The structure of anyone’s native language strongly influences and fully determines the world-view he will acquire as he learns the language” （Kay