Is It Culture or Is It Language? Examination of Language Effects in Cross-Cultural Research on Categorization.

Differences in reasoning styles between Chinese and European Americans held even when controlling for the language of testing. Bilingual Chinese organized objects in a more relational and less categorical way than European Americans, whether tested in English or in Chinese. Thus, culture affects categorization independent of the testing language. Nevertheless, language affected some Chinese bilinguals' categorization. The responses of Chinese...