THE INFLUENCE OF LINGUISTIC STRUCTURES ON COGNITIVE PROCESSES ACROSS LANGUAGES AND CULTURES
Abstract
Language is a fundamental cognitive tool that shapes human perception, categorization, and reasoning. Across approximately 7,000 spoken languages, diverse phonological, grammatical, and lexical structures encode culturally and cognitively distinct ways of understanding the world. This interdisciplinary review synthesizes research from linguistics, cognitive science, psychology, and education to examine how linguistic structures influence cognitive processes across languages and cultures. Empirical evidence, including studies of spatial orientation, color categorization, temporal reasoning, and metaphorical framing, demonstrates that linguistic diversity correlates with measurable differences in cognition. Furthermore, bilingualism and multilingualism reveal the flexibility of the human mind, as speakers can shift between conceptual frameworks shaped by multiple languages. The review also discusses pedagogical implications, emphasizing that awareness of linguistic relativity can enhance language teaching, metalinguistic awareness, and intercultural competence. By integrating cross-linguistic findings with educational perspectives, this article underscores that linguistic diversity enriches cognitive flexibility and highlights the interplay between language, thought, and culture.
Keywords
Linguistic relativity, Cognitive processes, Multilingualism, Language and thought, Cross-linguistic comparison, Language learning, Metalinguistic awareness, Spatial cognition, Color perception.How to Cite
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Copyright (c) 2026 Shakhnoza Soibnazarovna Uzoqova
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
