The relation between language, culture, and thought

• Cognitive psychology and cultural psychology both examine the influence of experience on human thought, but there has been scant communication between the two fields.
• Cognitive psychologists usually examine the influence of language on thought without considering cultural contexts.
• Cultural psychologists conflate language with culture in their examination of cultural influence.
• Research with an interdisciplinary perspective has revealed that language and culture each have a unique influence on how humans think.
• Future research should consider how language and culture co-evolved and interact with each other to have effects on thought.

The relationship between culture, language, and thought has long been one of the most important topics for those who wish to understand the nature of human cognition. This issue has been investigated for decades across a broad range of research disciplines. However, there has been scant communication across these different disciplines, a situation largely arising through differences in research interests and discrepancies in the definitions of key terms such as ‘culture,’ ‘language,’ and ‘thought.’ This article reviews recent trends in research on the relation between language, culture and thought to capture how cognitive psychology and cultural psychology have defined ‘language’ and ‘culture,’ and how this issue was addressed within each research discipline. We then review recent research conducted in interdisciplinary perspectives, which directly compared the roles of culture and language. Finally, we highlight the importance of considering the complex interplay between culture and language to provide a comprehensive picture of how language and culture affect thought.