Whorf came to believe in a sort of linguistic determinism which, in its strongest form, states that language imprisons the mind, and that the grammatical patterns in a language can produce far-reaching consequences for the culture of a society.

• 沃尔夫进而相信某种类似语言决定论的观点，其最极端的说法是：语言禁锢思维，语言的语法结构能对一个社会的文化产生深远的影响。