【正确答案】According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, our language helps mould our way of thinking and consequently different languages may probably express speakers' unique ways of understanding the world. Following this argument, two important points can be captured in this theory. On the one hand, language may determine our thinking patterns; on the other similarity between languages is relative. For this reason, this hypothesis has alternatively been referred to as Linguistic Determinism and Linguistic Relativity.
This hypothesis is now developed into two versions: a strong version and a weak one. The strong version refers to the claim the original hypothesis suggests, emphasizing the decisive role of language as the shaper of our thinking patterns. The weak version is a modified type of its original theory, suggesting that there is a correlation between language, culture, and thought, but the cross- cultural differences thus produced in our ways of thinking are relative, rather than categorical.
According to Whorf, the world and our ways of thinking about it are deeply influenced by the structure of the languages we speak. A good example of this is the word snow in Eskimo and English. The Eskimos have countless words for snow. For them snow is extremely important and so crucial to life that each of its various forms and conditions is names. In English-speaking cultures, snow is far less important and the simple word snow usually suffices the needs. Language shapes our way of thinking. It manipulates individual in thinking habit, explaining the world and interpreting information. Thinking is part of the linguistic grammar, and different grammars control the thinking to different degrees. We think in a certain way because we speak in that way. Language is a controlling factor which has great power over human beings. As a result, every speaker constructs his own world through the language he speaks.

【答案解析】[解析] 此题考查的是考生对社会语言学中语言与文化、思维之间关系的理解。此题要求考生理解萨丕尔-沃尔夫假设、语言决定论、语言相对论的内容。